


The Descent of an Archangel

by Royswordsman (RoySwordsman)



Category: Avengers (Comics), Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Comic), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cyborgs, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 04:44:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 27
Words: 47,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoySwordsman/pseuds/Royswordsman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being caught in a bio-chemical explosion, Tony awoke to find out that years have passed and things have dramatically changed, in a world now enslaved by technology. He now has augmentations in place of his limbs. But that’s not the only thing that’s changed – Whilst trying to save his team-mate, he finds out that Steve is alive and has become a ruthless cyber-soldier with manipulated memories. It’s up to Tony to free Steve from this mind control and take down the mysterious leader implementing the chaos to free mankind from their control. The world’s fate rests upon Tony’s shoulders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Incipio

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing in a big bang and I've had some fantastic help, especially from my beta, Ari, who was working right down to the last second to help me get this done!   
> Inspired by Deus Ex and X-Factor.

Tony Stark was a futurist.

He lived for the future; he lived to build a better world, to design and construct and mould his creations. He wanted to bring them to life as a master puppeteer to make the world a better place to live for everyone else. He knew such selflessness was heroic. But before he knew it, the future was quickly closing in on him. It was up to him to keep up and to ensure that it went his way.

This was his era. This was Tony Stark’s future.

His eyes shot open and his lungs flooded with oxygen when he gasped, air with the faint taste of ash and dirt tingling his reawakened taste buds. The air was thick, and it felt like it had to be forced down his lungs to be processed. Tony’s mouth was still agape as the blurry images that flashed before him took a while to form into shapes. Eventually, the silhouette of the bald dark skinned man became clearer. As always, that one-eyed glare bored into his soul. He choked on the thickness of the air, sitting up and hacking heavily, eyes shutting with the sheer force.

“You’re awake.”

Tony rubbed his head, feeling the metal finger casings skim through his hair, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. Although he winced the moment his finger ran across the back of his head, instantly withdrawing his hand to stare at his metal fingers.

The first observation that he had made was that the hand was in fact not part of his armour at all. It was black, thin, a skeletal structure that moved as though it were real. It began to tremble as the realisation became more and more clear, noticing how it was attached to his elbow and that was where it ended the trembling alone was just too realistic, too humanistic.

A prosthetic hand, a robotic one, was now attached to him. This thing was in place of his real hand. The sudden switch filled his mind with so many questions that his head began to spin.

A light dizziness befell him. Luckily, he was on a table.

In the past, Tony had struggled with distinguishing himself with his technology, separating the two into different entities entirely; there was Iron Man and then there was Tony Stark. Ever since the incident with his armour becoming sentient, he tried to keep the two as separate as he could; removing his consciousness from the systems even if it was initially input as a safeguard. But from then on, he vowed to keep some sort of line, some sort of separation that prevented him from becoming a victim of what he had created.

Now it was part of him, more so than before. As if his arc reactor wasn’t enough integration. But as long as it was keeping him functional, as his reactor was, then it served a purpose and it did no harm. But that was his limit; he didn’t want to become any more of a machine than that.

“My… My hand,” he stuttered, eyes fixed on the tool that he had used to create, now replaced.

“It was blown off in the explosion.” Nick said calmly. “You were out for 5 years, Stark.”

A sigh of relief escaped the billionaire’s lips, “Only five years.” _As opposed to 70_.

“A lot happens in 5 years, more than you could ever imagine.”

Suddenly the sigh of relief didn’t seem very relieving. His dark cobalt eyes darted up to Nick, his face set into a harsh frown.

“Tell me everything,” Tony demanded.

“Where do I begin..?” 


	2. Praeteritus Preteritus

***

“Avengers, assemble!”

The command of Captain America could be heard anywhere and instantly managed to get all of the Avengers to their feet.

“What are we dealing with here?” Clint Barton asked as they took their allocated seats in the Quinjet, everyone fastening their belts over their chests. Clint had his quiver out in front of him as he looked up at Tony for an answer, fiddling with the end of each arrow and making sure it was perfectly in place. 

Tony’s eyes were busy scanning the schematics in his own helmet, darting from line to line, reading the coordinates and absorbing the information faster than anyone else realised. “You really ought to be grateful I can do this, you know. My retention’s an amazing feature, and a very underestimated one at that.”

Steve rolled his eyes at him. Tony chuckled. “Though, that being said, I don’t particularly boast about it. “

He sighed and continued, explaining, “There’s a bomb planted in the centre of New York City. But whoever did it, wasn’t planning on being discrete about it. It’s huge, right on the top of the Empire State.”

The patriotic star spangled man growled under his breath. He hated his city being in danger as much as anyone else, but bombs in recent times, the increasing terror threats since that dreaded day, always made him tense up more than usual.

Tony noticed the subtle raise of Steve’s shoulders and turned to face him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “We’ve got this, Cap.”

Steve gave a nod of acknowledgement and gratitude for the reassurance and then faced the screen. “What kind of bomb is it?”

“Judging by the schematics that JARVIS is giving me, it looks like something chemical. It doesn’t say who the designer is. I’m sending it through all of the technology and weapons databases that I know but it’s using tech that I don’t think I’ve ever seen. You think it’s safe to say that it’s Latverian?”

“I wouldn’t make such an assumption.” Black Panther said from the seat behind Tony. “Political tensions have reduced between Latveria and the USA significantly. Victor Von Doom would not risk the truce at present.”

Tony sighed with frustration, “Right. Politics.”

Steve stared at the screen at the small hologram that Tony had made appear, which showed a small x-ray of the bomb.

“We’ll diffuse it. No biggie,” Tony said with a shrug. “Looks simple enough. I just want to know who’s behind this… And why.”

“So do I,” Steve agreed, pulling his gloves a bit higher up his arm so that there was not a single crease in the bright red fabric.

“We will find out,” T’challa contributed, stroking his chin with his sharp claw that was on the end of his glove.

_He sounded so certain._

Janet hovered around Steve’s shoulder, asking, “So what’s the plan, Cap?”

“You think you can shrink small enough to get into the circuits?”

“I can relay instructions,” Tony said.

Captain America turned and gave Tony a look that could turn water into ice. “You’re coming with me, I need someone with more tech expertise. You can’t just take the backseat.”

 _But I wasn’t taking the backseat,_ the billionaire thought, but sought to be peaceful. He’d just get this over with and keep the best interests of the team in mind.

“I wasn’t but hey,” he said with a shrug. “Fine, you, me and Janet, we’ll get this taken care of. T’challa, can you keep an eye out and tell me if you can see if you’ve got anything else on the system. I’ll have Rhodey clear the air for us so we can make sure that no civilians get injured if this thing does go off then at least the surrounding area is safe.”

“Good plan.”

That little piece of acknowledgement and gratitude from Captain America, his hero, was enough to make his heart race. His expression changed from caution to enthusiasm in a heartbeat. Luckily, his faceplate was hiding that. He didn’t want Cap to think too much of it.

 

The three of them stood at the open door, waiting for the signal to move. Gusts of wind pushed back Janet initially, but she sped up the pace of her wings to resist.

Tony was first, his boots lighting up then jets beginning to propel him upward. He straightened his posture into a more horizontal pose, turning his head toward Steve.

Steve held onto Tony without even needing to ask. His hands rested on the bulky red shoulder pads as they caught the light, shining like a candied apple. Tony smiled a little; he always enjoyed when Cap would utilize him like that. There was something comforting about it, but he couldn’t quite place his finger on what it was.

He just liked being close to him, perhaps.

With a smooth movement, he set off, zooming ahead with subtle tilts to cut the wind resistance as Cap held onto him tightly. Steve’s head-wings were slicked back due to how fast they were going. Tony cut through the air with ease, finally reaching the tower with Janet following behind them.  She’d struggled to keep up by the reactor powered jet boots and thus resorted to clutching onto Tony’s toe when she managed to reach him.

“Thanks for offering me a ride, Iron Man,” she teased, giving him a look.

“Sorry, was in a hurry,” Tony said, rolling his eyes in retaliation.

She gave his arm a light spark, pouting before flying over to the large device.

Once Tony was perched just below the large needle on top of the Empire State, he returned to a vertical stance and let Steve climb off his back gently. On his way down he gave Tony’s back a light pat – probably the closest gesture he was going to get to a ‘thank you’.

Steve darted toward the needle and began to climb it, reaching the bomb and opening the panel right away so that Janet could fly into it. His azure eyes scanned the wires then he began to draw from his past knowledge to try and tug at the right one.

Once more, Tony set his jets off and hovered up toward Cap, staying behind him and trying to direct.

“According to my systems, if you connect the red and yellow wire, then the countdown will stop.”

“Are you sure?”

“There’s no time to be sure,” Janet interrupted, using her stinger to cut the wires, drawing out the copper innards from the plastic casing and then placing them together as told.

Cap narrowed his eyes, doing the same to the yellow and red wires that were on his side too – since there seemed to be double sets of wires which possibly meant two explosions rather than the earlier anticipated one.

“Now carefully get the green and blue, try and connect them to the base control panel, which is the green thing you see right there.” Tony pointed, using his repulsor as a light over Cap’s shoulder.

Cap did as he was told, still nothing. Janet was mid-wire cutting when the wire that she had just cut sent a surge through her body, making her yelp in pain.

Quickly, Tony cupped his hand around her, drawing her out before she returned to her full size. The shock was too much for her small frame and with that she was unconscious.

“I need to get her back to the Quinjet, that shot of electricity would be equivalent to someone getting struck by lightning.”

As she grew, so did her weight. Tony’s arms began to sag before he got a firm grip of her, tucking her closer to his chest so that JARVIS could do some scans, make sure it was nothing vital. Tony knew for well how painful electric shocks could be, so empathy tinged his touch as he held her carefully against his chest.

“Go,” Steve ordered. Tony turned and headed back to the ship, watching as the large docking door opened and he flew right in, landing on his feet and handing her over to Clint. The archer frowned as he held her.

“I’ll make sure Hank knows it was you that got her shocked,” he said, giving Tony a look.

“I’m sure he’d love another reason to hate me,” Tony said, snorting disdainfully.

_As if having a fling with her, even if it was way back when, wasn’t enough._

Cap was busy trying to get the right wires in line when he spotted the same LED that Janet had. It’s flashing pace was gradually getting faster and faster. He tapped his communicator,

“Tony, there’s-“

There wasn’t enough time. The eyelets of his helmet shattered into a spider web crack and alarms in his suit began to ring, the suit was compromised.  Just as he was about to speak, he was surrounded by flames, shrapnel, wires, a toxic orange coloured gas escaped and filled his lungs.

“Cap? Cap..?!” Tony spun around only to watch the star spangled man become cloaked by smoke. Then it came their way, the explosion. _“Steve..!”_

Before he knew it he crashed back into Clint, then into the wall.

The light crackling of the fire turned into silence.

Then darkness.

_Complete silence..._


	3. Consurgo

***

The memory of seeing his team engulfed by that explosion made him feel ill. He sat up and coughed, placing the seemingly newly acquired metal appendage over his mouth.

_I’m going to barf._

It all came back to him the moment that the details were uttered. After all, it was his command that got them all in this position in the first place. If only he’d had time to do a more thorough search, but there was no time to dwell on the past, not when he wanted answers. No, he needed answers.

“Where’s Cap? Janet? Clint? T’Challa?”

“Let me finish, Stark.”

That knot in his stomach wouldn’t go away, in fact, with every passing moment it became tougher. He placed his hand over his stomach.

_If I’m going to barf, it’ll be over Fury’s shirt._

Tony narrowed his eyes and focused on the harsh expression that he was receiving in return.

“Then finish.”

Becoming Iron Man had changed him. It had instilled more compassion into him, ever since recovering from being a monger of death he certainly wanted to prevent it. Bombs should’ve been his forte; the key word being _‘should have’_. And yet he couldn’t prevent this from happening – sure they’d managed to stop the world from being devoured by an intergalactic planet-eating giant, but they couldn’t stop a simple bomb. It was _more_ than insulting to his ego, intelligence and background.

“That wasn’t just a bomb.”

“You’re not answering my question, Fury, where is everyone else?”

The man with the eyepatch cleared his throat, gave Tony a filthy look and paused for a second longer just to make him squirm before he proceeded to tell his story. “That bomb was a bio chemical weapon. To this day, no one knows what it does exactly or who sent it, that’s why we need you. You’re the missing piece. You of all people should thrive in this new era.”

The billionaire sat up properly, trying his hardest to get to his feet, his legs dangling from the table which was when he had spotted it. It seemed as though his arm wasn’t the only casualty of the explosion – his left leg was also bright red. It looked just like his boot from one of his suits, but minus the jet propulsion system which he couldn’t spot on the sole of it. Internally he scowled at the fact that the longer he was awake the less human he was becoming, or rather, had already become. But his rage was far from subsiding,

“Where the hell are the rest of my god damn team, Fury?!”

“The explosion killed them.”

There it was. That was the trigger that Tony’s gut seemed to be waiting for. His eyes shot open and he keeled over, vomiting a dark brown liquid straight onto the floor.

_Damn, couldn’t you wait to do it on Nick’s shoes?!_

He used the back of his _real_ hand to wipe the remnants of the liquid splatters from his mouth, looking nothing but miserable. That was a vile taste; it’d tasted like he’d downed a bottle of battery fluid.

…Not that he’d done that before. Actually, that was a lie, he’d done that before. Only once at a frat party during his time in MIT. Come on, he was 18.

“That substance you just puked up over my clean floor is what runs through your parts. It’s a tube alongside your veins.”

Tony’s mouth contorted and wretched at the aftertaste that glossed just over his tongue. Gradually Tony pieced it together, the schematics began to bubble in his mind and then he turned his attention back to Fury, sitting up properly and feeling less nauseated. “So tell me Nick, why do I have these things? And why do you have a hand like mine? Don’t think I didn’t notice that black glove trying to hide it.”

The older man quite consciously pulled up the glove on his finger to hide the silver ring that was visible around his wrist. “Everyone has one of these. By that I mean everyone is dependent on them. You see, that gas that came out of that bomb was more critical than you ever anticipated.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s done something to everyone, and it wasn’t just in New York – it was global. It started with the one on the top of the Empire State, and heroes worldwide tried to do exactly what you did. You know, they even managed to penetrate Latveria. Needless to say, Doom wasn’t happy when he returned from the UN conference to see his people suffering from a major brain disease that was brought on due to the gas.”

Again, processing the information; Doom had been a possible culprit, but if that wasn’t the case now, then who else? A register ran through his head, but he couldn’t think of anyone that was this capable of doing such a thing, or a motive behind it.

“Tell me more about this brain disease,” Tony demanded, even though his throat was still sore from the acidic aftertaste.

“There’s not much we know, and we’ve tried to use all the medical expertise we can. Although it’s limited. You see, everyone with super powers and super enhancements seem to be doubly as effected. Therefore, the deterioration of their brain seems to be more severe.”

“I need to know specifics, Fury. I can’t just go on what you’re saying.” Fury’s words were like daggers, stabbing his temple each time he provided a dosage of information which resulted in an even more severe headache.

“The _specifics_ , Stark, is that this toxic gas that couldn’t be contained and it was attacking the nervous system. It’s stopping the body from functioning, taking down organs one by one. It starts with muscles and then it spreads to organs. You’re lucky; that arc reactor alongside the Extremis serum of yours seems to have stopped it when it tried to attack your heart, by the signs of it. The two work in tandem, which is strange. You now need both to be alive…in a way doesn’t that negate the effect of Extremis. Though, that’s not important right now. All we know is after your coma you got it back into you.

“We wanted to use reactor technology to save others, but it appears that yours is the last of it. All in all, this brain disease is affecting nations world wide, people, everyone. The only way to prevent it all seems to be a little chip in your mind. The augmentations you were given were to help with your loss of limbs, since you seemed to be right in the line of fire during the first explosion. Anyone physically impacted was given bionic enhancements you know, especially if they were standing right in front of the damn thing when it went off. That fill you in enough?”

“What are you talking about? You realise all of my facilities are powered by arc reactor technology, right? This thing here can’t be the only one left.” He tapped his chest, mainly in gratitude that he’d once again been saved by the electromagnet next to his heart.  

“They’re all gone. You should really take a look out of the window. Those explosions where everywhere, Stark.”

He shook his head. It couldn’t be. Tony had a range of headquarters located everywhere; California, Jersey, even Coney Island.

“When the military were trying to cordon off the disease, try and contain it, they bombed everywhere. Napalm, manly. Millions of casualties. It wasn’t any good, not at all. You know what that meant? More augmentations for those affected. ”

Tony needed to see the destruction with his own eyes. His heart rushed with panic as he dropped the sole of his foot to the floor with a large clank. He staggered toward the window with a jerky limp, trying to get used to the new weight that dragged his footing down toward a broken boarded up window, tearing away the card as quickly as he could and looking out into the city. It looked worse than just a napalm bombing; it looked like it’d been hit by a nuke. There were, however, a couple of large skyscrapers standing, ones that he had never seen before.

If he wasn’t in front of Nick, he probably would’ve burst out into tears and threw a table at the nearest wall. As it was, he just slumped against the wall, exhausted.

“So who do these enhancements belong to, and why was I given them? And tell me about this chip?”

Suddenly calling Bucky bionic man because of his arm didn’t seem so funny anymore.

_Note to self: Never again._

“What you have on you is Oscorp tech. After your factories went down, medical facilities became reliant on the closest benefactor. With Doom too preoccupied with looking after his own people, and Baintronics far too focused on veering away from anything remotely helpful, Norman decided to step up to the plate again.”

Tony snarled under his breath, constantly and forever holding a vendetta against the man who had stolen one of his suits and gave it a paint job – naming it the Iron Patriot. He glanced at his arm only to see an Oscorp brand sticker hidden by the bend of the arm. Instantly Tony tried to scratch it off, only to spot a larger logo on his left heel.

 _Great_.

“So is he helping with these operations?”

“The number of explosion survivors was scarce, but yes. You were the exception, you know; everyone presumed that you were dead. We kept you under wraps and it took a lot of work to do so. SHIELD found your body and we kept it.  Performed the surgery ourselves.”

“That’s reassuring.”

Whilst trying to scratch the sticker off his heel, Tony attempted to gather his thoughts;

_So in summary, the biochemical bomb we couldn’t stop contained a gas that’s attacking nerves and organs and the only way to prevent it is to insert a chip into the brain that’ll support the neurosystem. Sounds pretty simple enough. I wish I’d thought of that tech first though._

“So what now? What’s the plan Nick?” he asked, waggling his foot, now free of the brand by messy scratching.

“Something’s been happening to people... Stark. We don’t know whether it’s this chemical making them crazy but after a while, after the incident, people started going on killing sprees. You know who the first victims were? Heroes. These regular folk started attacking all of the Avengers. The team had to disperse, but every day a new body gets brought in.”

Tony stared at him with wide blue eyes, not believing what he was hearing; were heroes actually getting killed by people?

“But... Everyone—“

“It’s amazing what huge mobs of murderous civilians can accomplish.”

“This is like the freaking zombie apocalypse...”

“But worse for you.”

“Why’s that?”

“Norman, since he gained more political sway... Implemented a new legislation. No tech. All tech is Oscorp tech, so we’ve been trying to run our own computers incognito but he’s shutting down our satellites. So communication between us all is down. That means when the Avengers dispersed for safety, we couldn’t get back in contact with them unless they made it to our base, which constantly has to be relocated. So you can imagine the pain.”

Tony shuddered at the fact that his own satellites had probably been taken down too. If they found SHIELD’s, then they sure as hell found his largely branded ones.

“Shit...” The once billionaire scowled, rubbing his messy overgrown beard and walking around, attempting to get used to his limbs. “This sounds far too suspicious. With Oscorp taking over then murderous rampages...”

“Exactly.”

“So you want me to take him down, is that it?”

“No, find the specifics, get back to us and then we’ll take him down. Our priority is to get the satellite back up. That’s what I’ll be doing.”

“And you expect me to just go out like this, out there?” he emphasized his words by pointing outside.

“Your suit’s there—or, what’s left of it.” 


	4. Texo

Tony ran over to the pile of red scraps the moment that Fury pointed it out, picking up the shards of what once was his armour. There were pieces he could fix, others were unsalvageable. With a heavy heart he picked up the faceplate that was fully intact bar a couple of scratches. “Give me all the tools you have," he replied in a low voice.

Fury of course, wasn’t one for demands, especially from Tony; nonetheless, given the situation, he gathered the tools and gave them all to Tony.

Tony sat down for hours, trying to use what he could to assemble it. The faceplate was first, then the helmet, down to the neck. The back piece was the hardest since it had so many pieces but he decided to take inspiration from his earlier designs and weld over it until it was a flat surface with ridges just for his back. As long as it served its job of protecting him, then it was fine in his eyes. The chestpiece was done and slotted with ease over his chest, complete with the bright light in the centre that was now his only source of power for the suit. Then he reached the legs. He stared at the red boot then looked at his new leg augmentation, still writhing over the fact that it was Osborn’s technology. It wouldn’t be part of him unless it looked the part, or of course he refused to let it be part of him. Tony worked on the leg, pulling out some of the circuits and replacing them with his own, and then finished off with the boot cover. Ever since Extremis he’d been getting closer and closer to his suits, and always said that he and the suit were one; now they really were.

The difficult part was working on his hand – since it was his dominant hand, so he didn’t make it the complete gauntlet of his suit – a much more streamlined version with an attachable repulsor. It was amazing what a man could do with a box of scraps.

It was now done; the gleaming armour, with silver scratches from the welding and golden faceplate was now his. It was full powered by his heart and it looked god damn beautiful as it caught the light. It was possibly his most streamlined armour to date—but that was probably because it had virtually nothing in it. Few weapons from when it was damaged, no shielding capabilities asides from its rough exterior – only a couple of lights, the rather non fancy LED’s.

Now he was ready to go. But to try and look discrete or to be noticed was the new question on his mind. Who was he kidding? He was Tony Stark; of course he’d be noticed. That was pretty much out of the question.

Tony slipped off his faceplate, and the rest of his armour followed obviously except the parts that were attached, and placed them in a rag of a bag that was lying around. It was more of a sheet, but fashioning it into a bag wasn’t rocket science. Actually, _anything_ was easier compared to building that suit again, considering it was one of his most complex models and he had to rebuild it keeping simplicity in mind.

Everything was neatly in a bundle as he took his first steps into the barren land that was once his city. It was a sight for sore eyes, that was for sure. The more he walked, the more his heart sank. It seemed empty, but then came the crowd of people over where Central Park used to be. All staring in unison at a huge screen with Norman Osborn talking about the upgrades to the chip, or new possible augmentations that people could buy. The guy was selling augmentations like it was Botox. As though it was the next best thing to have a limb hacked off and replaced with a cybernetic arm or leg.

A fashion trend.

_That’s a hell of a disgusting trend. I know I’m a technology junkie, but eesh._

Tony combed his fingertips through his long grown hair as he watched everyone gawk at the screens. He shook his head and continued onward trying to comprehend what exactly he’d seen. Technology wasn’t meant to be cosmetic, and he’d spent a long part of his life trying to distinguish himself from machines. Uploading his consciousness was the first mistake, when his armour had turned sentient and the last resort was Extremis. After that he could communicate with technology, he had become one with his machine, he was Iron Man – even after the countless times that he said he wasn’t.

This is what society had become during the time he was out cold, and already, it broke his heart.

It wasn’t long until the skies started to become darker and large beaming spotlights filled the city while everyone returned to their own spaces in swarms.

“Curfew is in place, please return home and recharge.”

_Recharge? Right, everyone had become co-dependent on technology, there were bound to be some things that needed recharging. But a curfew too? Now things were getting ridiculous; it was straight out of a horror movie where some cyber Nazis had taken over the world._

To avoid the spotlights, Tony ducked into an alleyway and pressed his back against the cold brick wall. Sure he knew that he needed to advance and he’d had enough rest, it was just a case of analysing the search patterns of the lights and coordinating his movements accordingly. It was like playing that school yard game where the person would turn around and you’d try and get as close as you could before they turned around again. Not that he’d played in any school yard, being alternately homeschooled and sent to boarding school before college, but it was a game he’d read about. Now it was his turn to try.

His eyes darted, counting the searchlights that were coming from helicopters above; one, six, ten. Ten in a single area, and they all seemed to have their own designated areas to patrol. Now to count the time between movements. He slipped on his helmet and began doing the same with the rest of his armour, but just as he lowered the faceplate, his shoulder was grabbed.

A flash of blond hair was the first thing he caught a glimpse of in the blur during being dragged back through the alley. His repulsors took a time to light up – his scrap box fixing wasn’t exactly perfected yet. As soon as he could he raised his hand up and pointed it toward the woman that was holding his shoulder plate.

“Carol?!” 


	5. Tego Texi Tectum

There she was, wearing her Captain Marvel outfit; red, blue with that bright star. It was torn and grubby to the point that the yellow looked more like a dark blood stained orange. Even her hair had lost that sheen it once had.  But that wasn’t all that had changed about her. The moment she turned toward the mention of her name Tony spotted that half of her face was covered in a metal plate.

“...Or terminator...” He mumbled under his breath.

“Shut up for a second, Tony.” She whispered but still with that hard tone in her voice but the last word was filled with bitterness for a reason unbeknown to the man she was talking to.

“No, tell me what the hell is going on!?” he shouted, only to be muffled by a red gloved hand that was firmly placed over the mouth slit.

They were lucky he didn’t upgrade his speaker system.

He was thrown into a new space, still hidden and surrounded by walls as he stumbled blaringly around to try and catch his footing. One thing’s for sure, he still hadn’t grown entirely used to walking on his new leg attachment.

 Jessica and Carol stood side by side, hands on their hips in that typical power stance. Both of them looked as though they wanted to kill him—which wasn’t a new feeling to be quite frank.

“No drinks or couch?” Tony shrugged as he looked around the dead end that he’d been cornered into, usually where the huge dumpsters would be but they were clearly moved for more space. He stared analytically at them through the gaps in the face plate.

“Who are you and where the hell did you get that suit?” Carol barked.

Tony lifted the faceplate and stared, saying, “Just who the hell do you think I am? I got it from good ol’ jolly Saint Nick gave it to me in his bag of presents.”

“It can’t be him. Tony died in that explosion,” Jessica whispered to Carol after she tried to shield her words by using her hand.

“Take that god damn armour off you scum!” A voice shouted from behind, but moments after Tony tried to pivot around on his heel to see who it was, he felt himself being tugged back and strung to the wall by thick white goop.

“Peter!” Jessica yelled, “Calm the hell down.”

“That guy’s wearing something that does NOT belong to him.” The ferociously upset voice yelled back as he leaped, bouncing off wall from wall eventually to stoop down in his crawler position in front of Tony.  “This is what we call a Trojan horse. Come on, Greek history 101. You know, I never got to finish that class...”

_Even when he was angry Peter had this habit of rambling._

“Not that you ever cared for History, be honest Peter. You were more into science and the arts, if you count photography as an art. That’s up for debate. I’m more of a pop art collector, I don’t particularly count it as an art,” Tony jested back. “And kid, this belongs to me. My suit, with custom additions that you’ve probably never seen before.”

Peter’s large white eyes narrowed and he aimed the next shot for Tony’s mouth, but the man tilted his head to one side and felt the sticky webbing spread over his cheek. A disgusting feeling that made him cringe.

“I don’t know what you are, but you don’t know me, or Tony!” He yelled. “And you’re not funny either! Then again, Tony wasn’t the funny one in the group. We all know that it was me and Danny that were the funniest.”

“Are you kidding? Are you ranking me lower than Danny Rand? I feel insulted.”

“You should. You’re a terrible clone, or whatever you’re supposed to be.”

“Not a clone. Not a Skrull. Not any sort of alien race that’s been discovered since my ‘death.” Just me.” Tony arched his back, trying to brush a spinal mechanism segment against the wall for the liquid nitrogen release he had stored for another attack. It wasn’t flashy, and it was something he’d applied to his classic suits too – but never particularly used.

“The Tony I knew wouldn’t walk around with that sort of hobolicious hairdo. Now, tell me you li’l terminator, who are you? Don’t make me angry...”

“I won’t like you when you’re angry? Okay, so, Bruce must be even more pissed off that you’re stealing his lines now,” he said before blowing a strand of hair out of his face.

_It’s not that bad is it? Hobo? Nah, thankfully Parker wasn’t around during my mullet days or I would’ve never heard the end of it._

He pushed back and white smoke leaked from the back of his suit as he’d managed to put a little more pressure on the release until it was activated; freezing the webbing which then made breaking from it a cinch. Tony landed on his feet with an audible sigh of relief. “Are you ever going to go with my freeze resistant chemical compound suggestion for your webbing or was my entire 10 minutes of research into the suggestion a complete waste of my time?” He brushed off the remaining white ice particles and held out his arms, showing that he wasn’t going to attack, nor was he preparing one.

Peter was just about ready to launch himself at Tony, but his spider sense wasn’t tingling. The boy stood there, staring at the man that he’d thought was dead as he spouted out something about the chemical compound, which was a discussion that was only held between the two in private. It wasn’t a huge conversation either, just a quick passing by sort of chat.

“Those chemicals of yours got blown up along with all of your labs, in fact, everyone’s labs. There’s no science, there is only obeying and adapting.”

“Technically evolution is a science, I’m just saying. Adaptation, survival of the fittest. Charles Darwin. Probably the first lesson you were ever taught throughout genetic engineering.”

Peter loomed, edging closer with caution, ready to strike but for now just staring. Jessica did the same with Carol by her side.

“What do I have to do to prove myself to you guys? Honestly now,” Things were starting to get more desperate on Tony’s end, mainly because he knew time was of the essence. “As for the labs and chemicals, the Peter I knew used to get whatever he needed however he could. Why haven’t you raided one of Oscorps labs yet? I’m sure they have a dozen; logic dictates that’s what all these building are, right? They hardly look like housing potential unless you’re into sterile environments.”

Another look was exchanged between the trio, but the most reliving aspect of it all was that Peter had calmed down from the hysterical rage that he was in not too long ago.

The spider boy lurched toward Tony once more, this time placing his index finger above Tony’s eye to keep his eyelid open, his thumb pushing down posterior palpebral border so that the tarsal glands of Tony’s eyelid were on show. White, huge eyes glaring into his own as if they were trying to find some sort of fault. Tony flinched right away and tried to close his eyes but the force the costumed boy was using was forcing him to keep them open. His patience was wearing tenuously thin with the scrutiny.

_Don’t attack; let him do what he needs to do. He’s Peter Parker, he’s the kid that used to try sneaking into my lab almost every day to check on what I was doing. But most of all, the boy is smart. Trust his smarts, Stark._

“Your fingers hurt, Parker, that grip of yours is going to destroy my complexion when you rip off my pores.”

Peter craned his head forward then turned to the other two with shoulders that seem to fall into a slump. “He looks real.”

The tall blond woman swallowed thickly. “He can’t be real. Tony died, we all saw it with our own eyes.”

“Listen, pal, cyborg-thing, whatever you are…”

Tony turned to Jessica, ignoring the other two.

“Jessica, if you know anything, it’s what it’s like for your identity to be mistaken. Skrulls, remember all of that? You know, just… Trust me, there’s nothing I can do to prove to you that I am real, that I’m the guy that apparently didn’t die in the explosion. But lemme show you this.”

He pointed to his arm. “See, augmented. But I customised it myself, got rid of some wiring, mainly inbuilt tracking technology that is in all of the augmentations. Basic GPS sort of stuff but it’s active in all of those things, even yours. You have to let me take it out, for your own safety.”

“You’re not laying a finger on us!” Carol snapped, whilst Jessica fell quieter than she usually would be, her expression dropping at the previous reference of her Skrull queen counterpart.

“I’ll let him rewire mine.” The dark haired woman said after a moment of contemplation. The second she spoke Carol grabbed her arm and looked her sternly in the eyes. The possessive grab made Jessica cringe, but it wasn’t as though she wasn’t used to it. She pulled away and stepped toward the man, holding her head up high. “Try me.”

Peter didn’t know how to react in that situation. He’d become protective over the tiny group that he had left but those two were power figures within their own right. Especially Carol; he most definitely didn’t want to mess with her.  But they let Peter have his time with this ‘Tony’ so now it was time to let her, as much as he wanted to intervene, and he knew he definitely would once his spider sense took hold.

“So what you’re saying is that Oscorp is tracking us, and has been since we got these things?”

“That’s a given, you realise we’re dealing with Norman Osborn. I thought you would know him better than anyone else,” Tony replied.

“Shut up.” Peter sassed back, tired of this entire debacle by now. Internally he wanted to admit that this was Tony. He was conscious of his projecting, aware that if this was nothing but wishful thinking…


	6. Condico

Tony rolled his eyes once more and waited for Spiderwoman to slip off her bright yellow glove to reveal a metal hand that resembled a claw in its design. It certainly wasn’t as realistic as Tony’s was, and had a lot of damage. There were chips along the fingers and the palm made a soft buzzing that was earlier masked by the rubber texture of her glove. Tony held her hand in his own and took off his single gauntlet, to reach into his suit and pull out a tool that he would keep within a small plate beneath the shoulder, just in case. It weighed virtually nothing because it was just a piece of acrylic that was shaped for the convenience of a multifaceted screwdriver. His suit was prone to malfunctions so he had to be prepared in the most resourceful way.

Her eyes didn’t leave his face, and Tony could feel them as though they were burning a hole in his forehead, well that would be an excuse for the excessive sweat that dripped down his temple. He began to take out the wiring system that was attached to her wrist, the wires going into her arm and showing on the upper layer of her skin as though they were veins. Surprisingly the technology was very well integrated into the human body.

“What happened?” he asked in a whisper, unsure if he should ask that question in the position that he was in. But a pure interrogation wasn’t his style, he had to get answers for himself, especially since this was taking far too much of his time up.

“Tried to defuse a bomb in Florida, but my hand went numb when I inhaled some of that smoke, next I knew…”

Even with a mask on, the elder man could see her sadness. He remained silent and fingered out the dark blue chip that he had spotted in his own augmentations and let it fall to the ground before placing the palm plate over the exposed circuitry and pulling back, again with his hands up to show he meant no harm, letting the acrylic tool slip back to its place in his shoulder plate. With that she withdrew her hand and moved her fingers as though she were playing an imaginary piano, then slipped the glove on. All seemed well, and what Tony was saying seemed to check out.

Peter thwipped at thin tendril of webbing toward the fallen chip and reeled it closer to examine, then passed it to Carol.

“GPS tracking,” he murmured whilst Captain Marvel turned the chip back and forth. She didn’t know exactly what it was by looks, but if Peter said it was what the dark haired man had said, then she trusted him. He was one of the few people she could trust. Her red cybernetic eye darted to analyse it then began to ache, with that she clutched her faceplate.

Peter’s head rang and there was a moment of distorted imagery, he tilted his head upward to hear the blades of a vastly approaching search helicopter nearing their usually unspotted corner, ripping through the air.

Jessica ran toward Carol and grabbed her shoulders, “Carol, hey! Talk to me!”

“My eye… It’s buzzing… It hurts!” She screamed with unbearable pain as the sensation of needles piercing her covered eye was the closest description to the sensation that she was experiencing.

Tony stared with concern before forcing himself to act. He didn’t want to breach the little trust he had earned, but to hell with that. He ran toward her and pulled out the shard, huddling her close and trying to open the metal screws that held it in place. To his surprise the woman in red didn’t leap to her rescue. But by this time she had realised her hand was fine, that Tony was in fact the real Tony Stark. Details could be straightened out later; now they were being pursued, and they had to deal with Captain Marvel.

Peter raised his arm and shot some webbing over the rooftops that shrouded the alleyway in an attempt to create a canopy to shield them from the lights that came their way, as if that would help, but desperate times called for desperate measures. The webs weaved to cloak them in shadow as Jessica tugged at Tony’s arm to guide him away, but he was far too focused on Carol. He knew that buzzing in her eye wasn’t just a coincidence, there was a trigger, and perhaps her viewing the chip that they had taken out had been that very trigger. That just proved another point to him, that these augmentations weren’t just tracking people, they were being used as Big Brother.

Eye augmentations were attached optical nerve, sending an image through neural pathways the same way as eyes do to the brain, but what if there was some sort of interception? Tony’s new theory was that the eye that Carol was using was not only projecting images to herself, but to a third party, essentially she was being used as security camera. That begs the question why she wasn’t hunted down earlier but Tony quickly dismissed that question the moment that he’d formed another answer with his rapid mind set; she was being used as a spy.

He cringed as he managed to lift the faceplate from her skin, trails of blood and the same brown fluid he had vomited earlier pulling from the screws he had managed to lodge loose trickled down her beautifully pale skin, rolling down her cheek. He pulled it away with a quivering grip and saw the wire he needed to re-wire, the once billionaire decided to keep his focus on that – at least that would help distract him from the innards of the skull that he’d revealed.

What hurt even more was that he was doing this to his friend, that his friend had suffered that much to have to endure this pain. Carol meant a lot to him; after all, they had suffered from the same demon in the past haunting them over and over- alcohol. He hacked at the wire and then changed where it was connected to, but that didn’t stop Carol from flinching in agony.

 She could withstand many things, but going through an optical operation whilst awake was a feat all in its own. She yelled the moment the wire was reconnected with a spark, and even with shaking hands Tony had managed to place the faceplate back, slotting the acrylic into its place and standing back to watch her reaction. The eye came online again; the black socket filled with the colour it once had and she stood, though hunched with pain, with her hand placed over the corners of the faceplate since it wasn’t particularly attached well. There was only so long that the placement would hold. His suspicions were confirmed, and now he’d not only removed the GPS tracking, but the camera wire. He held it in his clenched fist and took a deep breath.

“How is it?” he asked.

“Painful…”

“Its times like these you could really use a drink, huh?” he asked with a weak smile, trying to shake the remainder of blood and dark fluid off his mechanical hand.

She frowned in return then stepped up to him, throwing her arms around him in a tight embrace, her eyes shut with such relief that this was the man that she had trusted so long ago. Tony smiled with relief too, patting her back, careful not to stain her costume with more blood.

“I hate to ruin the moment guys but we’re being hunted like rats here, my webbing can only hold up for so long.”

Peter and Jessica stood side by side on guard throughout the entire operation which to Tony took a lifetime, but in reality only took a couple of minutes. Praising his speed, they began to dash down the alley which they had initially come through and with that Carol broke from the embrace to tug Tony’s arm and propel herself forward. She moved so quickly her feet lifted off the ground and she zoomed ahead to catch the two spiders up, hovering not so high above them, but just enough to keep Tony in the air too. To make things easier he lifted his legs, but her strength never ceased to amaze him. The exit to the streets wasn’t too far, and Peter was now webslinging from wall to wall to pick up more momentum.

Tony’s heart was racing. He knew for well once they entered the streets they would be out in the open, but that was better than being cornered in the alleyway. They knew what they were doing, they knew how to survive in this world and he was just a newcomer, so he had no choice but to follow their lead. Carol dropped him, but allowed him to get to his feet before continuing with the others. He staggered at first, trying to put one foot in front of the other then pick up speed, which was proving difficult with that new leg of his that he had to keep adjusting to.

There it was ahead of him, the opening to the city, and he snatched the sack he had left there when he was yanked away by Carol into his arms, cradling it under one arm as he ran forward. As he lifted his head, slipping his faceplate on, he saw a distant shadow running toward them. It was huge, tailing after a burly man who moved with heavy footsteps. As he came closer, they could catch sight at his expression; no, he wasn’t one of them. He looked like a civilian, but something was clearly amiss. For a moment they stood as Peter crouched on the floor, not willing to get any higher than he was. Carol hovered protectively above him, her arms held out and ready to strike, Jessica followed Carol’s position and whipped back her long black hair, hands ready in a stance.

“He just looks like a normal guy, you think he needs help?” Jessica asked.

“He shouldn’t be out here when there’s a curfew; he’s probably running to avoid the spotlight patrol, same as us. Let’s go and help him escape from the spotlights, get him back to his home.”

Carol’s heroic nature kicked in and she touched her toes to the ground, her heels following as she began to approach the man. “Sir!” 


	7. Monstrum

The image of the bald man in an ‘I love pumpkin’ t-shirt became more clear. He wore scruffy torn jeans with a chain dangling from the pocket, and looked far too quick for someone of his size. Nonetheless that didn’t stop Carol from approaching him. Tony was glad that they’d stopped so that he could catch his breath but he stared with extreme caution. He was going to aim a repulsor, just in case but Jessica reached over and lowered it mouthing “she knows what she’s doing.”

The behemoth of a man took Carol’s arm, lightly at first and gave her a deadpan expression. She tried to smile reassuringly but the grip began to tighten and tighten. That moment she knew this man wasn’t desperate, there was just something wrong with him. She tried to yank her arm away, but even with her extreme strength he pulled her down, throwing her to the floor with immense force.  The concrete slab which she was thrown against cracked with the weight of her back pushing down on it. She let out a yelp of pain and Jessica ran in, only for another woman this time around the same height as Jessica to run in and punch her hard in the gut. She came out of nowhere, again at a speed that didn’t match her body. That same deadpan expression echoed throughout, and she turned around with precision and elbowed Spiderwoman whilst she was winded. Tony didn’t want to stand there and watch, and he certainly wasn’t going to even if he was instructed to.

“Begin power up,” he ordered his armour as he held up his palms, the attachable repulsor raising itself and locking in place on his new appendage smugly. The lights began to glow and gather energy. The main problem was that even with this armour Tony couldn’t go rushing into battle, despite how much he wanted to, especially with his leg giving him so much of problem.

_Oscorp tech is a pile of junk, even after I modify it; this thing’s killing me._

Peter turned his head from side to side, seeing people jump out of corners as though they were rats crawling out from the sewer at the first sign of food. He glanced down at his web cartridges that he had prepared a long time in advance; like he’d said, there hadn’t been any labs he was able to use so what he had was limited. SHIELD only contacted once in a blue moon, and it was their own responsibility to stay off the radar especially with these killings becoming more frequent; though this meant, as Tony so observantly spotted, that his webbing was much weaker than it potentially could be.

Rubble trembled as the footsteps of the many began to near, but then it kicked in as an instantaneous trigger.

“Peter you try and web them back, I’ll get Carol and Jessica,” Tony barked out as he resumed his rightful stand as the leader of the group that he would still deem, as scattered as they were, the Avengers.

The man in the hot-rod red suit shot a repulsor ray straight at the large bald man, “Ever heard of not manhandling someone like that, chrome dome!”

Bang on target, it hit his shoulder and sent him staggering back, but with practically no reaction, no scream of pain as the burning singe in his shoulder smoked. He grabbed Carol again. Carol shot power shots toward the beast of a man but as much as he was getting burned and obviously hurt, he just carried on as he was. His mouth opened with tendrils of spit joining his chapped lips, letting out a roar which immediately broke the strands.

The woman who had Jessica in her hands flung the dark haired woman toward Carol, causing them to collapse in a heap but the man wasn’t done. In fact, the woman wasn’t done either. Whilst Tony was firing shot after shot at the two, alternating from hand to hand, having to endure the prolonged power up time which he made a mental note of investigating later. Tony glanced over his shoulder to check on the boy who was standing with his legs shoulder length apart, trying to make a webbed barrier that was being ripped through by the fingertips of these berserkers.

Jessica had managed to get to her feet, hunched and in agony, but soldiering on as she launched her strongest series of kicks toward the two figures that loomed over them. Tony knew he couldn’t leave Peter by himself when there was practically an army of these things on the other side of thin netting.  “Jessica-“

“No need to say it, Tony,” she growled back, flipping back her long black hair and standing in another stance as she quickly switched targets, alternating once Carol had gotten to her feet too. By this point blood streamed down both of their faces, their uniforms torn and tattered, but Tony had the utmost confidence in their ability even though he knew that they were weakened in their current state; having taken a torrent of abuse from those things and both having had an amateur surgery performed on them. But Tony was glad they were holding strong.

The blank eyed woman grabbed Jessica’s hand the moment she threw a punch the man intercepted and grabbed her fist in his bear claw of a hand and crushed it. She screamed in agony the moment that the metal snapped, the fizzing of circuits short-circuiting ringing through her ears.

Maybe he’d spoken too soon.

“You two go and find somewhere safe, get the chips out of Peter – just go!” Carol yelled as she rose to her feet, hovering in the air as her hands sparked with energy.

She knew what she was doing, she was a Captain – no, a colonel, she’d commanded men before, so with hesitation, Tony listened to her words. Now they had to find a way to escape, but again, Tony’s movements were sluggish because of that clunk of steel that was now his leg. On second thought, he wasn’t just going to let them stay here like that. A good soldier never leaves a man behind, that’s what _he_ always told him. He swung his shoulders around and pressed a button that activated a rack of heat sinkers, sending them toward the two. The force of the bullets was enough to send them back, crashing into the nearest alley wall in pure synchronisation. Whilst the remainder of bricks collapsed on the two, Tony gestured to Jessica and Carol to follow him as he’d spotted an area to duck into. A manhole, of course that was just by the webbing that Peter had made.

Jessica followed holding her hand close to her chest, and Carol limped as she leaned on the other woman for support. There was a momentary exchange between them, a glance of relief and thankfulness glimmering. Carol leaned a little closer, and as Jessica turned her head she felt the light skim of the other woman lips against her cheek, causing her to smile the faintest of smiles. 

“If we’re going to die, we’ll do it together…” Jessica whispered.

Carol shook her head.

“We’re not going to die,” she said, clutching a little tighter to Jessica. She was firm, reassuring, giving the other woman a strength from her heart that the fight had worn at. 

Tony watched the two and gave them an eyebrow raise. Truthfully, their relationship was always obvious to him. In fact, it was something he admired; that subtle adoration. But Tony knew nothing about him was subtle, so he just admired it and knew he would never be a part of such a thing.

Luckily, Peter was the one to kneel down to the manhole; it was certain that Tony would have difficult with the chunky armour that he was in.  Tony slipped in first, since he knew his armour would take the longest, and he could use it to light up the way. He slid down the railing of the ladder and landed with a loud thump, hearing the screech of rats as they moved away. His arc reactor gleamed brightly as he stood at the bottom, holding out his arms. “We’re all clear, no waters, there’s a small path probably for workmen down here.”

Peter was the next to go, with Carol holding up the lid to the manhole. He positioned himself and scrunched up his face, holding his nose.

“I’m not even down there and it smells disgusting. I don’t remember sewers smelling this bad! You’d think with the lack of chilli-dogs and vendors that this thing would smell way better.”

Jessica let out a snort of a laugh but as the boy held his hands to the metal circle rim his eyes widened, head throbbing as images flashed before him.

“What’s taking so long?” Tony asked, looking up at Peter with his hands placed on his hips.

“Spider sense. Carol, look ou-!” By the time he spat out his last word, reaching up his hand, the webbing ripped open completely. An army of these entranced people, foaming at the mouth, reached toward Carol and Jessica, mobbing them.

“Get _down,_ Peter!” Both of them screamed as their words were slowly drowned out by manic roars. Tony used the power in his boots, hovering up and grabbing Peter, then flying a little above him to cover the manhole. The boy squirmed in his grip.

“No! No we’ve gotta help them! Tony, we _need to_!” Frantically the spider tried to escape from the metal grip, attaching himself to the nearest fungus covered wall.

Tony turned his eyes up, lifting up a plate on his arm to reveal an infrared scanner, trying to use that to find them as he pointed his palm to the surface in an attempt to find them, but there were no traces matching their heat signal. “They’re gone, Peter. They might’ve escaped… Just wait it out here, will you? They asked you to wait and they know what they’re doing.”

_I hope they know what they’re doing…_


	8. Ignavus

Sitting down there was like waiting in a bomb shelter, hearing the thunderous footsteps above them shift and move. Peter kept his eyes on the man hole cover, inching closer, though as Tony noticed him doing that he called the boy down. “Show me what you’ve had done…”

“I wasn’t in an explosion.” Peter clarified as he hopped down, crouching initially before standing and lifting up his mask; finally Tony was allowed to see the boy who had grown since then. He was hardly a boy, he was a man, he was before the accident but Tony didn’t want to admit the child that he saw as his own had grown so much; it made him feel old. But Peter was the boy that he trusted, even throughout the war. Even after that mishap, he’d still trusted him. It was painful after that, but eventually relationships were mended after time.

That didn’t stop it from making Tony’s heart ache every time the memory propped into his mind. With that aside, Peter Parker would always be the kid that had the tiniest hero worship for Tony—okay, so tiny was an understatement. The boy adored him, and Tony took it upon himself to be the father figure, especially since he was a figurehead in the Avengers. He knew full well Peter thought of him and Steve as ‘mom and dad,’ which he did try to encourage, despite his denials. 

“Then what? What’ve you got for me?” he asked, waving his fingers with anticipation. The quake above them made the rusted pipes shudder and shake dust, even cracking with the impacts. It sounded as though he were in a bunker during the war, listening to bombs being fired above. For that second even as they both swung their heads toward the roof and kept their shoulders raised from the surprise.

The dust filled their lungs and made Peter hack; Tony too, once he tasted what seemed to be moss with a hint of copper in his mouth. Nonetheless, after that small distraction he brushed back Peter’s brown tufts of hair that covered the back of his skull. Tony narrowed his eyes and saw the stiches, right then he knew he’d have to cut it open. “This might hurt.”

“I wasn’t expecting brain surgery NOT to hurt,” Peter said, shutting his eyes. He could feel the metallic tips sifting through his hair, but he had to keep reassuring himself that this was Tony Stark. Brain surgery should be a cinch for him, but what worried him was that Tony was an engineer, not a surgeon. But the constant reminder of how many doctorates he had could’ve meant that he had at least one medical PHD stuck in there.

Again, the acrylic knife that he had came in handy as he leaned closer, he pressed the edge to him and began to cut, cringing himself as he did. Blood seeped from the newly opened wound and Peter clenched his fists tightly. Since it was more of a lump under the skin, Tony had hoped that it was above the brain, just over the skull and much to his relief he was correct. There was the flashing green square. “Why did you get this, kid?” He asked, mainly to distract the boy.

“The gas – people that inhaled it… Well, they started to deteriorate, some faster than others. More explosions started happening around the city, then around the world, now it’s practically part of the atmosphere. It causes a neural breakdown, the only way to stop it is this chip. The chip contains a small pulse that’ll push the toxin away, it has to be active.”

His eyes darted around the circuits as though reading a book, “They all have trackers. Well, at least yours does. And Carol’s augmentation did too.”

“There any way to get the tracker out, like you did for Cap Marvel?”

“I can try…” There was caution in his voice, his eyebrows furrowed with concentration.

“Try isn’t a reassuring word for me, Tony.”

“It’s all I can promise you.”

He was using the tip of the piece to cut the tiny chip as though it were a scalpel, scratching at a particular piece to see a spark fly and then pulling back a bit. “The wounds open… Give me some of your webbing fluid, the deoxygenised type, fresh from the can.”

Peter reached into one of his pockets and held out the tiny can in the palm of his torn gloved hand, it had to be compact  if he were to carry it around without any bag, any weight would slow him down, and living a nomadic lifestyle meant that possessions were limited, but his webbing was compulsory. The older man took it from him and quickly punctured a hole in the side of the can with the makeshift knife, then placed the can quickly to Peter’s scalp letting the liquidised webbing drip onto the wound. He then used the flat of the knife to spread it out, making sure the wound was covered as he handed the can back to Peter, wondering if he could somehow use what was left.

Tony was famed for his ingenuity and this was a prime example, even as he was at work Peter couldn’t help but be in awe of him. There was a reason this guy was Iron Man.

It was sore, but he could manage, turning around and looking at the man as he slotted the acrylic slice back into his shoulder armour. Either way, he was grateful.

“I’m still breathing so I guess that’s a good sign.”

“I wasn’t sure it’d work, but it has, so now I know how to do it,” he brushed away the bead of sweat that was just by his temple with his forearm casually.

“Wait, you weren’t sure!?”

“I don’t know this tech, Peter. I’ve been in a coma for this long, I knew how the prosthetics would work because Stark Industries was actually had a few in the works, but brain chips? That’s a completely different story.”

Peter held out his hands and gestured frantically, pulling at his hair, “Are you kidding!? I could’ve died!”

“Keyword being could have. You’re lucky I’m a genius,” he calmly dusted off his hands and smirked. “And careful, you’ll tear your ‘stitches’” He added with a smug chuckle.

Peter shook his fist at Tony and then let out a huff, quickly raising his shoulders again as there was another devastating sound of impact from above. “We should help them.”

“Remember what I said, kid. I’m not going to repeat myself,” It was hard not to become distressed over what was happening with those savages, but again, he had to keep repeating to himself that Carol and Jessica knew what they were doing and they were capable enough to deal with a couple of brain-dead monsters.

Sitting it out was all he could do at present, walking around down the sewers to see if there was anything of use, and then walking back toward Peter, having not gone far from him. He knew if he decided to scout the area then Peter would probably jump at the chance to leap into action alongside the two ladies, and right now, Tony couldn’t afford to lose the one guy that was providing him intelligence; not that he was going to lose _anybody_ , not on his watch. He just needed the company, there was no way he would admit that he would, but he hated being alone. He hated being the ever alone Iron Man. Adjusting to this new foreign landscape and trying to survive was proving difficult as it was, but at least now he felt more at ease with his fellow Avengers by his side.

“I’m surprised you haven’t used this place as a hiding place before. Seems empty.”

“You go any further than we are now and it’s taken territory…”

“Taken? By who?”

“Mainly people we locked up, either they’re working for the security force here or sewer dwellers, and trust me, there’s not enough of us to take em out. They’d jump at the chance to kill us; we learned that the hard way. That’s how we lost… “

“Lost who?”

“Tigra and Luke… Danny got out lucky, but he’s gone somewhere else to deal with his own thing. Can’t imagine how much that was killing him…”

Tony sucked in his cheeks, turning his head toward the darkness of the sewers. “We picked a good spot then.” He attempted a positive spin on things, just to make the kid lighten up a bit.

“Lucky charm of Tony Stark,” he said, squatting down on the floor and pulling his mask back over his face.

Tony laughed lightly and did the same, dusting the floor below with his hand and then taking a seat, his legs dangling on edge just above the murky water.

“Lucky,” he repeated with scepticism. He slipped his mask on again, making sure it clicked firmly in place, looking from side to side, taking in a deep breath then coughing again, forgetting the air was dust infested. He looked at his hand, turning it back and forth, gazing at it from fingertip to elbow.

“How does it feel..?”

“What?” Tony asked, turning his head.

“That thing… You know, I couldn’t really ask anyone else. I knew I’d probably get a sassy answer or slapped in the face, those augmentation things… They’re pretty personal, right? I’ve never had one, nor do I ever want one, but I’ve just always wondered… How they feel.”

“It feels like a big part of me is missing,” Tony replied bluntly, “I feel like I’m part of my suit, to be honest.”

“I thought that… You know Extremis and all…”

“More so than that.” There was a twinge of sadness in Tony’s voice. Clearly Peter had hit a sore spot unintentionally.

“Sorry. Well, if it helps any, yours looks cooler than any I’ve seen, and I’ve seen loads on the market. Everyone wants one nowadays.”

“Because it’s my work, and my work will always, always be better than Oscorp,” He replied firmly, showing off his hand as he held it up and wiggled his fingers. Peter huffed happily in return and then crawled a little closer to Tony.

“You know it’s genuinely good to have you back.”

“Don’t speak too soon, kiddo,” he said, noticing that the noise above had subsided; there weren’t any more tremors in the pipes, no rattling, just the sound of dripping water. He heaved himself to his feet, taking slow steps to the ladder. “I’ll go first and you can follow.”

“Oh sure, leave me in stinky-town,” Peter pouted.

“I’ll let you go first when you stop using words like ‘Stinky-town’ as descriptions,” Tony said with a smile as he slowly climbed each inclined rung, eventually reaching the metal plate and pushing it open.


	9. Vacuus

His fingertips curled over the metal circle, getting a firm grip and pulling himself up to scout left and right. He scoped the now desolate terrain. There was nothing in sight but broken buildings, fallen objects and a couple of large bodies.

“All clear,” he said, pulling himself up completely as he was followed by the eager spider that jumped out of the manhole right after Tony. Peter remained crouched on all fours whilst Tony walked toward the bodies of the fallen berserkers, rolling one to its front to check that it was dead, which it clearly was. The searing hole in its chest should’ve been enough reassurance, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

The others had different sorts of injuries, but it was clear that Jessica and Carol were the ones to have inflicted them. Tony went from body to body, placing them in a row, after all, these were people once and they did deserve to be respected nonetheless. The care that he was giving them by placement didn’t go unnoticed by Peter, who followed and did the same as the man in the iron suit.

As he walked further he saw a trail of blood leading to the alleyway, the same one that they were using to hide in earlier. Cautiously he followed the crimson path and his eyes widened at what it led to. There she was, her black hair covering her face, lying as still as a doll. Tony could feel his heart thud with pain, unable to distinguish the whether it was caused by the intense regret he’d had for staying down below. Her mask was torn, along with parts of her outfit; her full lips were ever so slightly parted and had a trail of red from the corner. She was beaten, battered, pulverised to death. He could’ve gone through every bone that he knew was broken, but that would cause far too much agony. Peter ran up to him, peering over his shoulders, the wide white eyes widening even further as his body began to tremble. Tony scooped her into his arms and looked at the boy, what was he to do?

Peter crept a little closer and reached out to touch her shoulder, his shoulders slumped, very slowly lowering his head to follow and hide his rage. “I listened to you Tony… I stayed down there…”

“I trusted them, Peter.”

“Why is it every time I trust you, someone dies?!” he yelled through clenched teeth.

Tony looked at him sharply to hide how much that truly pained him. He wanted to reply with every bone in his body, but deep inside he knew that this was just a venomous retort fuelled by the death of a friend. This is how Peter grieved; he grieved with pain and darkness. He turned with Jessica’s limp body in his arms, trying to find somewhere for it. There was no point answering Peter, it’d only heat the situation up further.

“Where can we put her?” he asked his voice low.

“Put her…” Peter returned a tone just as bitter, “We can take her to the closed off park, it’s where the other superheroes have been put to rest.” He replied, refusing to look at the man who asked him the question.

“Where’s the park then, lead the way.”

As much as he didn’t want to follow any of Tony’s instructions, part of him knew that Tony wanted the best for his team mates, after all that low inflection in his voice was a tell in its own. He walked in front of Tony, not saying anything but just leading him. He knew better than to just walk out in the open like that, they had to stay close to the walls, staying in the shadows and ducking whenever searchlights came their way.

Tony tried to catch Peter up a bit and walk side by side rather than behind him, but whenever he did the boy would pick up his pace and ensure that he was ahead.

But if there was one thing neither of them could stand, it was silence, even in desolate times Peter needed to hear words around him, even if they weren’t necessarily words of comfort. He had to fill in the silence.

“The parks not far… It was central park, was. Not many people go there now, it’s cordoned off.”

“Why?”

“It became more of a memorial ground after there was an explosion there.”

Tony’s chest felt heavy, “Another one?”

_This guy went all out, whoever it was. And I wasn’t here to help, no, I was in a coma whilst this all happened. Now I know how Steve must’ve felt after he’d woken up for the first time, after missing the end of the war and all…_

“Yeah, and you know, we never did figure out who kept setting them off. It was a huge terrorist attack on a global scale.”

“See that doesn’t make much sense to me. Why would it be global unless there were numerous culprits?”

Peter paused and shrugged. “Maybe. Either way, because of it we’re all dependent on these chips in our brain to breathe.”

“This is far too fishy, what’s to say Osborn isn’t behind all of this?”

“You know, the thought crossed my mind but I dismissed it since he actually seemed as though he wanted to help. But you know as well as I do that he doesn’t help people out if there isn’t a price tag attached to it. It started with the rich customers but then he started offering his services to the public and you know, I’m no business student but…”

“Monopolising the industry since I wasn’t there to compete and industries like Baintronics weren’t interested at all.”   

Peter snapped his fingers, “That’s the word.”

“I’m glad they weren’t interested, having Sunset around running an entire industry would be…” He cut himself off and just shuddered instead to demonstrate his point.

Peter nodded, though he didn’t know much about the other woman. But if she managed to put the heebie jeebies into Tony Stark then it really was someone to worry about. But right now he was supposed to be angry at Tony, not sympathising with him. He huffed afterward to show his mood but something in the back of his mind was telling him that Tony was here for a mission, and he was just doing what needed to be done. Although they’d lost someone because of his mistake, pinning the blame wouldn’t do much good. He just decided to keep quiet and kept his head facing forward and walked along the dusty roads that obviously weren’t used too often, in fact this part of the city in comparison to where they just were was significantly different; broken buildings, rubble, bricks just lying there. But there were noticeably more trees whereas the other part seemed more like a concrete jungle.

“What’s the deal with this place?” he asked.

“Like I said, this place became more of a memorial ground. This part of the city was hit the worst by the explosions and well… Became a graveyard.”

“So this entire thing…”

“Pretty much, but the plus side is that the spotlights don’t really come around here as much… Keyword being as much. At least they give us that much.”

“Can you talk me through this whole Big Brother thing? It’s been driving me nuts.”

“After we give … Some peace…”  he said, gesturing to Jessica.

Tony nodded understandably and eventually they reached the now gated off Central Park. Large jagged iron bars decorated outside, all that were once black now covered with a green moss that crept from the base to the spikes. It looked haunting, dark, with very few streetlights around – only a couple of flickering lights from the broken lamps nearby.

He took steps of caution, toward the gate and stared up at it with such dismay. It was hard to believe that not so long ago he’d be in that very park, almost every lunch, eating a bagel with some coffee usually with Steve by his side. After all, it would be the super soldier that would’ve coaxed him out for lunch rather than sitting down in his office cooped up all day.

_Steve really did care…_

It was best to not think about him, especially since that guardian of his wasn’t around any longer, and the thought of that just broke his heart. Faded dreams left a bitter taste on his tongue.

Peter pushed the gate open, with the broken chain that was supposedly to keep the park off limits hung loose. The clatter of chains against the iron bars made the sound echo even louder  and caused a haunting chill to spiral up Tony’s spine. After the ex-billionaire shuddered he walked inside, now seeing makeshift tombstones made out of things like bricks and planks of rotted wood with carvings where benches used to be, and children used to play.

Tony felt himself swallow thickly as he looked around at where Peter was leading to which seemed to be a section that they’d cordoned off for themselves. He saw memorial stones – bricks with carvings of names, around the section. All names of friends, people he knew. It was no surprise he saw Tigra’s and Luke’s slabs.

There it was, that sickness boiling in his gut again, just like when he had woken up.

_Man up, Stark, it’s a graveyard, you’ve been to this sort of place before a million times. People die, get over it._

That was Tony’s way of consoling himself.

Peter knelt down and began to dig with his bare hands into a plot that had been untouched. “What do you think happened to Carol…”

Tony dreaded to think what had happened to her, whether her body was further up or had been dragged by those behemoths. Either way he knew that it couldn’t end well, not if Jessica was like this. Carol wouldn’t just leave her, in fact, she wouldn’t leave anyone. She would stick it out until the end and make sure that everyone was safe, even if it cost her own life. The selflessness was a painful quality that most of them had, but it was something that all of the Avengers had to learn to deal with. That’s the reason that Tony kept reminding himself that Cap must’ve died for something and he wouldn’t let the loss of his hero be in vain. 


	10. Sepulchrum

He placed Jessica down beside the plot they were digging and helped Peter out. “She’s probably…” It wouldn’t provide good morale to make a bad situation worse, especially in the boys head. “She might’ve gone into hiding, maybe she’s safe. But you know, she’ll find us and catch up eventually.” He clicked his faceplate up so his expression was in view, it was the least he could do.

The words of reassurance, though sugar coated, were what Peter needed at that moment. “I hope so too.” He said, slinging the dirt to the pile that they were making, knowing that this was going to take a long time.

The mud was mucky, thick and heavy, with rocks buried into it that joined the pile they made, damp with the rain that must’ve recently fallen. “You do this for everyone?” Tony asked.

“Yeah… Usually we have more help though…”

_You know what, I don’t care about getting dirty, and I need to do this to honour Jess._

Tony took off his large round shoulder pad and began to use that as a large scoop to shovel out the dirt, taking the other off too and handing it to Peter. The boy stared in surprise, but with that he could see that Tony was truly sorry for what had happened. The two shovelled a large pit that was perfectly square, though not as deep as he would’ve liked, but that being said he didn’t want to be trapped in a grave either. It was shallow enough for both of them to climb out of. Once they were done Tony held Jessica by the feet, Peter held her by her shoulders and supported her head and they both placed her down, climbing out once more and looking down at there. Without a word, there was a mutual moment of silence where they just stared down at their fallen comrade. Tony had been to many funerals in his time, but each one managed to hurt him more and more, but nothing would top the day that he buried Cap.

Thankfully, he came back to life, like a miracle, like an angel and he could only hope the same for everyone he had buried ever since. Every time he would shut his eyes at a funeral he wouldn’t pray, he wasn’t religious – more agnostic, but that wouldn’t stop him from hoping that the same miracle would happen and that they would live again. Even now when he shut his eyes, it wasn’t only Jessica he hoped for. He’d hoped for everyone around him, all of his fallen toy soldiers and even the man who he couldn’t see amongst them… Captain America.

Peter was the one who made the first move by shoving the first heap onto the pale body, Tony followed and didn’t stop until they both had managed to cover her up, and raise the ground back to the level that it once was. Honouring tradition, Peter grabbed a brick that wasn’t hard to find considering their surroundings.

“Can I borrow your knife..?”

“Better yet, let me do it.”

Peter held the brick protectively for a moment.

“Come on… I promise, I’ll give her what she deserves.”

Hesitantly the boy handed the brick over. Tony licked a button that was just under his shoulder pad and wretched out one of the lasers that he had fastened there, a small precision one he had just in case he needed it, and now it was proving useful. He held it in his hand and directed the power to the stone, using it to carve her name and the date in the stone. Accidently he messed up the last number, but who could blame him. He scratched out the number and replaced it with the new one, internally cursing himself for getting it wrong in the first place. Was it wrong to be impressed with his own handiwork, even if it was on a headstone? Probably. He placed it down on top of the mound of dirt, placed his laser back on the rack just under his shoulder pad  and took a step back, looking at it with a heavy sigh with Peter standing just next to him.

“I’m going to look around…” Tony whispered, pulling back and letting Peter pay his respects. He needed to see who else had died but most of all, he needed to find the stone he was looking for. Taking long, careful strides to weave between the disorganised stones, he set his eyes on a range of names that he was familiar with;

Johnny Storm

Sue Storm

Ben Grimm

Reed Richards

So that was all of the fantastic four down and out.

_Doom must be a happy man. Actually no, he’d hate that someone else got there before him. Not to mention his complex relationship with Reed, which I myself don’t quite understand._

Billy Kaplan was buried next to Teddy.

_At least they’re together._

_Tony, hold on, are you actually jealous of a dead pair of teens? Get a grip._

He knelt down and dusted off the stones that were covered with moss and dust, going from name to name. Each one a dagger in his chest.

No sign of Captain America. He’d expected Steve to have a huge statue, but there was nothing at all, and internally that made his blood boil.

“Where’s Cap?” Tony said as he looked toward Peter, facing the boys back.

“No idea but… He’s not around here.”

“Are you telling me he doesn’t have a tribute?”

Peter turned to face Tony, “He would rather people get tributes, and you know, this place was turned into a memorial way after Cap was gone. But they didn’t find a body to—“

“I was there, Peter. He was right next to the bomb.” Tony’s voice raised an octave, his heart raced as he talked about the super soldier.

“…So you think he… The explosion probably burned him up…”

Tony grit his teeth and shook his head, he could feel his eyes tearing up, he could feel the blood surge through his veins as the last sound of Captain America’s voice echoed through his memories. His body trembled and made his armour clatter, he couldn’t handle it. He couldn’t bear to think that he was gone. Countless times he’d run the scenario over in his mind and every time had the same conclusion. He kept trying to reassure himself that he’d be okay, but to think that his rudder was gone made his heart stop. He kicked the dirt with frustration and then placed his dirty hand over his face, leaning on a tree for support.

“Tony…” Peter said with worry.

“I’m fine, kid…” he mumbled, though his voice not reflecting his words in the slightest.

Everything comes back to _him_. Everything.

Obsession; no, it was infatuation. It’d _always_ been infatuation. It started with awe, hero worship and the more time they spent together, the more he realised what it truly was. But did he once tell Steve? Yes, in a joking manner. He said he loved him, but unbeknownst to the man, he meant it with all of his heart.

“Listen, I don’t blame you for them… For Jessica and Carol,” Peter felt the need to say, seeing how much the man was suffering and knew for well that he didn’t deserve that. In fact, after such a long time, Peter was happy to have him by his side and even more relieved that he wasn’t a fake that was sent by some other entity.

“You have every right to blame me, but I’m glad you don’t,” he simply replied, fixing his faceplate back over his face to hide how broken and beat up he’d felt. Never before had being at a graveyard jogged his sense of being. Now he was starting to question everything, so much so that it was giving him a headache.  “I think we need to find somewhere to rest for the night, wait it out.”

“Well we’re not going to risk it in the sewers again, and I don’t think I could sleep in there.”

“You’re telling me,” Tony said, “There’s bound to be somewhere. These look like houses, what used to be apartments.” He said, pointing to a row of fallen buildings.

“They used to, yeah. More people live actually in the city, it’s easier to ‘recharge’. Like I said, most people have augmentations now so they need to charge up at night. That curfew in place, well, it’s set by the government to ensure that everyone ‘functions’ well.”

“This is like a nightmare. A badly scripted post-apocalyptic sci- fi movie,” Tony said out loud.

Peter laughed, “If only. Then I could just walk out the cinema and write a terrible review and it’d be over.”

The boy began to lead the way out, thinking whilst he was walking about possible places to go. “All this time I’ve been moving from alley to alley, staying hidden. The longest I’ve stayed was in the place we found you in, it was pretty hidden. We stayed in the alleyways… The further out we went the more in danger we were. To be honest, I haven’t been out this far in a long, long time.” 


	11. Quies Quietis

Tony knew he had to find a place to rest, he had to recharge too. His old armour wasn’t exactly power saving, and the amount he was using his repulsor in that day was wearing out the old systems even though he’d tried to upgrade it as much as he could. His hand was feeling tired, as was his leg, clearly showing they too needed more energy.

“Recharging doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Remind me when we find somewhere, to try and install solar panels on this thing.”

“You can make solar panels?”

“Yeah, well, depends what we find but that’d make things much easier. Why didn’t Oscorp think of that? Oh wait, like they care about the environment,” he rolled his eyes, seeing a searchlight drift by. “Quick!”

By the time he spoke and turned his head, Peter was already up against the tree. The boy had extremely fast reflexes, not to be underestimated. Sometimes Tony forgot that. He joined him by the tree, facing the trunk to try and cover up the light that was emitted from his reactor. The sound of the rapid blades cutting through the air, blowing the dead leaves around sent a chill up Tony’s spine as he held himself closer to the tree, looking up at Peter to make sure that he was hidden much better.

There it was, the bright yellow spotlight that lit the smallest of rocks, doing a slow and steady survey of the area. There was that eerie silence that followed the light passing by, so quiet that Tony could hear his own heartbeat. The moment that he could see the light down the street, he grabbed Peter’s arm and yanked him down with unintentional force, taking him to a rubble heap to crouch by. The younger boy was caught by surprise and let out a muffled yelp, but followed his lead.

As he reached the heap, he dashed to move to the next which was only a couple of yards away, but felt his movement slow, his leg was starting to drag. With a groan he used his arm to lift it and heave it forward so that his strides were long, but slow.

“You okay there? Your leg…”

“Charge, it needs to charge,” he cursed internally.

“Right, power.” The boy glanced from side to side, grabbing Tony’s shoulder and tugging him toward a half collapsed building, obviously one of the worse hit by the explosion. It was completely dark, so once again they were reliant upon the light from Tony’s chest. They both had to walk carefully, sliding through gaps that were blocked off when they finally managed to find their way inside. There were fallen support beams, broken bar lights, shattered windows and collapsed furnishings. Squeezing through the gaps in the hallway was easy for Peter, but much harder for the man who wasn’t wearing streamlined armour, and armour that was much more flexible. He had to force himself through and almost stumbled when he managed to finally push the beams back.

“So what is this…?” Tony asked, his voice echoing throughout the hallways, which showed how large this place really was.

“This was a hospital, I think.”

“You _think?”_

“Well look at it, it’s pretty beat up, but I think it’s a hospital. I vaguely remember it being one, a makeshift one when the explosions started taking place. They needed more hospital facilities in NYC,” he explained.

“Right… At least that’s a good idea. Or potentially would’ve been if it wasn’t so badly hit.”

“Explosion was by the park, just a bit further up. You know how long it’s taken for the park to look like that after what happened?”

“The park looked terrible. Little grass, more dirt, a couple of trees…”

“Exactly, whoever planted the bomb intended it to destroy the people who came to this hospital.”

Tony cringed. “That’s sick,” he said as he brushed his hand past a cobweb.

“You’re telling me.” Peter hopped over some broken glass whilst Tony just tread over it, hearing it crunch under his feet.

They reached a room blocked by a plank of wood, shifting it to one side and opening the door that fell off the hinges the moment they did. Tony held his hand out to Peter, walking in and staring through the eyelets of his faceplate, looking from side to side, holding up his palms so that he could shine more light into the place.

The most he could hear was the scuttling of rats, pointing his lights in their direction to confirm his suspicion, and thankfully seeing the tips of their tails as they raced by, some escaping through the newly opened door.

In the dark room there were two beds and set of curtains separating them with some machines either side. This was definitely an old hospital room. He took a couple more steps in toward the beds, sitting on the edge and bouncing a little, dust flying everywhere. “Well...” He paused to cough. “Guess we’ve got ourselves a room in hotel de mort.”

Peter sat down and mimicked Tony’s small bounce to test the mattress the other side of the curtain. “Sheets and all. Wow, remind me to tip room service.”

Tony laughed lightly, lifted his faceplate and inhaled deeply after the dust had settled and lay down on the bed, hearing a crunch. His eyebrows furrowed and he slowly turned his head to see a skull beside him, his eyes shooting wide open and pushing himself off the bed and stumbling to the ground.

“HOLY SHI-!” he cut himself off, rubbing the side of his face that he’d hit on the bedframe on the way down.

“What?! What, what is it, what happened?!” Peter said as he pushed the curtain that separated them back and saw the skull.

“Someone forgot to check out, or… Checked out too soon,” he said, staring at the skeleton in the bed, its clothed arm draping off the side of the bed as rats surged from its ribcage, squeaking as they made their way out in a miniature pack.

Tony reached up, his hand still mildly trembling from the shock as he moved the skeleton, carrying it as bones fell, some shattering to the touch being so brittle after years of deterioration and some just falling. He gathered them all up in the bundle of clothes that they were still in and placed them under the bed, “Sorry pal…” He said as he cringed, dusting the sheet off to get rid of the bone fragments.

“That is actually disgusting,” Peter said, lifting his mask and giving the bundle a stare of revolt.

Tony shuddered again and lay down on the bed, reaching for the machine that was next to him and lightly dusting it off. “Don’t remind me that someone’s under my bed.” He said, pulling it closer and turning it around to open the back panel that was on most machines at the time. There was an immediate sense of alleviation that befell him the moment that he’d spotted the Stark Industries brand hiding on the back panel, at least there was some remnant that his company had existed, even if it was in ruins.

“When you put it like that, it’s creepy.” The boy lay on his back, shutting his eyes for a moment. It felt great to be on a bed after so long, a comfortable mattress, a moderately soft pillow behind his head.

The dark haired man rummaged through the set of wires, then there it was, the goldmine; a power panel. He pulled it out, examining it, turning it from side to side, reaching for his leg then opening it too after a tough tug of the metal plate he’d put over it to match his armour. It was a quick fix for him, but it’d do.

“Peter, can you open that respirator and pull out the green power panel? It’s just behind the red power wire.”

He knew these machines inside out, after all; he had a larger input with the design than he would ever admit to. Everyone called him a weapons monger but they all forgot his advancement in medical technology that was down to him.

The boy did as he was told, pulling out the wires not as elegantly as Tony but still without damaging anything, holding it out for the man who took it as he leaned over, trying to work on his arm. “Mind helping?”

He was eager to see how the arm worked, and how Tony dismantled it and changed it. At least the skill would come in handy in the future, and honestly, a little education was nice after spending so long on the run.

“So what happens when you get caught by those spotlights? It’s like we’ve mindlessly been hiding since I saw them.”

“You get arrested and you don’t show up again. Honestly Tony, I don’t know. But if you’re a superhero you just… vanish.”

Tony shook his head, holding his arm out for Peter to follow wherever he pointed, trying to ask him to move wires and then place the chip exactly where Tony told him to, then carefully closed it as instructed.

“I wonder what happens to them,” Tony said.

“Me too, always have. You know, sometimes you get tired of running and you just want to stand up to them, but you know, in this case you can’t. But you want to. Sometimes it’s just being curious, like what would happen to me if I did just get caught.”

 The feeling of being a renegade, running from the law was something that he always saw Cap as during the war, but he could never imagine what it felt like. Again, he managed to get a glimpse of empathy in the situation that he was put in, but at least he wasn’t running from the man that he cared about, at least he wasn’t turned against him.

That at least was something to be grateful for.

“I guess so, but I’m glad you didn’t. Who knows what could’ve happened.”

“Yeah, true that. I am happy for being here, don’t get me wrong. Better here than being probed by an alien race or something,” he said with a shrug.

“Without your help I’d probably be walking the sewers still.”

“And you’d get yourself killed.”

“Hey, I’m not that irresponsible.”

“Puh-lease,” he chucked, hopping off Tony’s bed and  returning to his own, looking at Tony’s hand as it moved back and forth with ease, relieved that his work was actually functioning, even though Tony was guiding him, it was somewhat of an accomplishment. He rest on his own bed, patting it out and lying flat with his arms behind his head.

“Are you implying that I’m not responsible? You know, you should watch who you’re talking to kiddo,” he jested in return, having missed the banter. It seemed to be a better atmosphere; they seemed to be a little more light-hearted, considering that they were in a broken down hospital. The ex-billionaire gently swivelled his body to rest on the bed, turning the pillow so that it was vertical, just tilted so his cheek was resting on it and reaching up and slipping his helmet off and placing it careful on top of the machine that was next to him. His armoured arm reached around the pillow and hugged it to his body, shutting his eyes. It was a relief to be on a bed again, to get some rest whilst his arc reactor powered up with the new cells in the places that were draining the most power. 


	12. Curo

Arc reactor technology was powerful; it was a generator on its own powered and created as an adaptation upon the theory of cold fusion but without the nuclear aspect. Although he had attempted to rewire it to his new augmentations the integration wasn’t entirely successful. He had to keep in mind that this was different technology, this was a new generation that he was mostly unfamiliar with since it was well… The future.

As much as he tried to adapt, there was a flaw with the powering system which was why he was using these chips. In the morning he’d try and find something to use to make some solar technology. A lot of hospitals were powered by solar technology when he had been caught in the initial explosion, so there was a thought in his mind that maybe, just maybe, there were scraps of some lying around which would make his job much easier. In truth, he was tired of using makeshift items; although it tested his ingenuity it also became tiresome and reminded him of the countless times where he’d had to act using what he had. It was nice to be tested now and then but this test seemed endless.  If something or somebody out there could cut him a little slack at least, it’d be appreciated.

He held the pillow close, and there was silence minus their soft breathing, the occasional creek of the springs when either of them turned, particularly Tony with the weight of the armour. They both needed food and water, but that could be settled later, knowing Peter and how he was surviving – he probably knew somewhere to get the supplies.

The occasional scuttling of rats feet by the door made Tony stir, then more sounds started to ring through his ears; the sound of the wind rattling the rocks, the propellers of the search light helicopters as they did their rota, then the loud sound of a wood plank falling was what made Tony sit up. He knew it was either the wind, or something they didn’t place back properly when they were entering the building.

He looked around, turning from side to side and then getting to his feet quietly, as to not disturb the sleeping boy. As carefully as he could he tip toed toward the door and craned his neck out, only to be greeted by a red gloved hand that wrapped around his neck and threw him back into the wall of the corridor with a heavy smack. He wretched in pain, coughing.

“P-peter! Get out of there!”

Peter opened his eyes as soon as his spider sense sent a blur of colours through his vision, slipping his mask on and crouching on the bed.

“So much for a peaceful rest. Yo, room service, anyone ever told you if there’s a sock on the door...” He was cut off when he caught sight of the woman before him. Her long blonde hair swirled behind her as she hovered elegantly in front of the open door, her hands glowing with energy although the once metal patch on her face had extended – rather than just her eye being covered by the plate, she now had a fully metal mask.

“Carol…?” Peter whispered, his eyes saddening at the sight. “What did they do to you?”

She held her hands out, the newly fixed eyeplates glowing as she let out a screech and surged toward the boy, full throttle. Tony raised his hand, narrowing his already blurry vision to get some sort of clarity before shooting his repulsor at the woman from behind, sending her forward into Peter.

“This ain’t the time for hugs, sorry Carol!” he replied as he leaped out of the way, jumping over her body and running up to Tony. “Well, Carol’s alive!”

“Yeah, I saw.” Tony rubbed the back of his head and got to his feet. His helmet was still in the room, and he needed it to keep safe.

It didn’t take long for the woman to get to her feet, spinning around and zooming toward them like a bull with a red flag waved in front of it, her eyes glowing, red shimmering lights glowing in the darkness. Tony noticed that the sun was starting to rise, peeking through the corner of the window that he was thrown to, not that he had time to admire it. He was being thrown out with Peter alongside him with the powerful woman having a tight grip of both of their necks. The remainder of the glass that was attached to the pane shattered upon impact as though it were sugar glass.

As quickly as he could Peter held his hand out and began to attempt to reach for a building with his webshot, trying to squirm his way out of Carol’s grip and take Tony with him, or at least slow down the momentum of which she was heading straight for the concrete below.

“You’re going to kill us all!” Tony yelled in desperation.

She let out a muttered roar, similar to the type the berserkers earlier were letting out, but her sheer pitch made him shudder with fear. It was intense, powerful but most of all—deadly.

Peter managed to get away by wriggling constantly and pulling at her thumbs and tried to shoot a series of webs around Tony to attempt to free him from the grip, but now that Peter was free, she focused both of her hands on the dark haired man in the suit of armour. There could’ve been trails of fire streaking behind Carol due to how fast she was going; the momentum she was gathering was insane. Tony felt his armour heat up, parts starting to melt before with a pulverising smash he was thrown to the ground. The webbing around him provided little help, but that was needed, at least to cushion the impact. He backbreaking thud to the ground made Tony scream out in pain, throwing his head back. Even with that armour on it felt as though his bones were shattered.

Spiderman wasn’t about to leave Tony there, he swung in with the soles of his feet facing Carol and booted her off the fallen knight with a ‘Huzzah.’ All of the commotion didn’t go unnoticed, in the distance of the buildings Tony could see people peering through their windows at the brawl even through the hazy double vision he was experiencing.

Peter hopped to his feet and held out his hands to cocoon Carol in webbing, it was his best shot. He didn’t want to hurt her but he didn’t want to let her go. 

She fell to the side and struggled, tussling with the white fluid with that seemed to trap her, even with her immense strength.

The man in the armour tried to make his way to his feet which at this point seemed much easier said than done. He groaned in agony, using the palm of his hand to get to his knees first and trying to ease himself up from there, which certainly wasn’t easy with the clunky armour he was in. One of the downsides about his previous work was that it wasn’t exactly compact and easy to move around in, with much less joints and more thick parts. Easier to repair? Yes. Great mobility? No. Once he was up on his knees things were easier, trying to use some of the rubble from the crater that they’d created to get a little leverage, tugging on a concrete slab that was jutting out of the ground.

After the struggle to get to his feet he heard his back crack, straightening up as much as he could and brushing away a trickle of blood that was dripping from the back of his head down his neck. When he hit the ground, he hit it so hard he was sure a couple of his teeth were knocked out in the process.

_She’s going to get a hell of a bill from my dentist. Wait, because my company’s technically not up, does that mean I’m not covered by my health plan?!_

_Priorities, Stark, stop thinking about that._

_But… My teeth._

He frowned, rubbing his jaw, then Peter swung by and landed on his own two feet beside Tony, eyes fixed on Carol.

“What do you think happened? She’s suddenly gone nuts.”

“Judging by the look in her eyes, Peter, something new is in her system…” He replied, taking a step up toward her, slowly, but sharp jolts of agony surging up his spine with every step closer.  “You know, the way she was powered, it just… Reminded me of those guys we faced back then.”

Peter tapped his masked chin, “I don’t think you’d be far off with that hypothesis.” He said, crawling up to Carol. “Carol, you hear me? Do you know who I am? How many fingers am I holding up, and yes, thumbs count.” He said as he waved his hands in front of her face. She snarled through the webs, letting out that Amazonian scream that could make any man quake in their boots.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Tony added, standing next to Peter though slightly slouching, the pain in his back was far too much for him to actually stand upright.

“No fingers or she doesn’t know who I am?”

“She doesn’t know who you are and if she had her way right now, you’d have no limbs yet alone fingers, my friend.” 

Peter cringed and wriggled his fingers in front of her but then put them in his own pockets, looking at Tony for further instructions. 


	13. Turbatio

To be quite honest, Tony had no idea what to do. He stared at the woman and knew it’d only be a matter of time before she broke free from the webbing using her powers. They were already starting to corrode at it. They didn’t have long, but the question was whether they had long enough for the genius to really examine what was wrong. That would involve having to remove her entire faceplate, which was much more troublesome than just an eye plate. He knelt down as Peter removed some of the webbing to reveal her face, she screamed at them, even louder without any obstruction before Peter quickly webbed her mouth shut.

“We’re going to draw attention,” the young man said.

“We already have.” Tony pointed out, pointing to the civilians staring out of their windows.

“So why the hell are we still here?”

“Good point. We need to get Carol somewhere where I can get that plate off.”

Peter got ready to lift her, having to reinforce the webbing around her again, particularly around her hands. It was then that footsteps behind them were heard, loud clunky steps that made the pebbles of concrete shake.

_Oh what now?_

Tony swivelled around, expecting to see yet another hoard of berserkers but seeing something quite different, something that made his heart stop for that very second.

There he stood in front of him, armoured legs that looked all too familiar. They were his design after all. He remembered working on them, spending hours trying to get them correct, making them lightweight and agile with powerful propulsion systems. His eyes moved upward to the hips that were the same set of pieces, then the abdomen which had each plate to form a defined sculpt with each crease having a natural curve. That was where the armour ended to reveal his star covered chest – rather than being robotic armour, that was a skin tight Kevlar with scales, one that he had also been developing specially for one person.

It wasn’t long until their eyes met; he met the deep azure that made him freeze in place. The bottom half of him was the unmistakable Iron Patriot that was stolen from him so long ago by Norman Osborn, and the top half was well… _him,_ aside from his gloves; red gauntlets took their place.

_No, this must be what they were talking about earlier, when the others had held him captive; it must be a clone or replica created to infiltrate their security or take advantage of their trust._

It didn’t surprise Peter that Tony stared at the man before him, jaw agape. But to the young man, this wasn’t Steve standing in front of him; this was a cyborg that was feared amongst the city that just so happened to incorporate the best traits of their once leader into its design.

“Tony, pal, I know you think that’s Steve but it’s not… We’ve gotta run before it powers up.”

It was all white noise to the man that seem mesmerised as he took a step closer, eyes locked with the ones that he was so familiar with. One foot followed the other getting even closer whilst the blond haired man just stared at him with narrowed eyes.

There was a silent exchange between them it seemed, and even Peter was shocked. Usually by this time it would be firing its repulsors at anyone that it deemed a threat. But maybe he’d spoken too soon in that case.

The man raised the red gauntlet that began to charge with a recognisable high pitched noise, though it wasn’t pointed at Tony or Peter, it was pointed at Carol.

“Rogue technology detected,” he said in a smooth, deadpan tone.

“What are you talking about?” Tony asked.

Peter stood in front of Carol, trying to pick her up again as the woman writhed and punched through the webbing, punching past the boy and up into the sky, her eyes glowing a bright red.

“Incompatibility with upgrades. System failure.” The Captain swung his arm up and kept it directed to her, firing a powerful shot which she countered with her own, screeching with a mix of agony and pure corruption. She switched to dive at them, Tony ducking out of the way this time as Steve grabbed her with ease and slammed her to the ground. He didn’t stop there; mercilessly he swung her from side to side until metal shards flew from her face, cracks appearing in the newly fitted plate.

“Upgrades? Is that what that was, Steve?” Tony attempted talking to him as though things had never changed, when they clearly had.

The other man bluntly ignored him and began brutally punching the woman in front of him, something that everyone knew the Star Spangled Man would never do, not in a thousand years. For a moment they both stood there in shock as he pulverised their friend, that’s when Peter jumped in and webbed Steve’s arm, yanking it away. Tony took the time to fetch Carol, pulling her into his arms and seeing her broken and beaten, brushing away the bloodied up shrapnel from her face, cobweb cracks over the eye plates. Using his propulsion system in his boots, Tony managed to take to the air, leaping over the giant iron bars of the park and placing Carol down in it before zooming back toward Peter who was being attacked by the other man in the armour.

“Steve, stop!” Tony shouted, trying to latch himself onto Steve’s armour. He didn’t know why the man was intent on hurting the others but he needed to save his friends, while he still had them. The state of Carol was already critical from mere observation, the last thing he needed was for Peter to get hurt. Although he now knew where the hospital was the supplies in there were scarce and already probably used up.

Steve took to the air too as Peter tried to websling away, though that didn’t stop Tony from holding on as tightly as he could, his legs wriggling as he tried to maintain his balance in the air. Peter couldn’t get far, not at the speed that the man was going even when he was weighed down by the huge armour that was grappling at his arm for some sort of leverage.

_I don’t ever remember my suits going this fast; this must be what it was like for Steve when I gave him a lift, except I didn’t leave him dangling off my arm._

“A little consideration here!” Tony yelled through the cuts of wind that forced him to shut his eyes before they began to water. It was hard to hold onto the jaggedly shaped armour, and what made it more difficult was the fact that Tony still hadn’t gotten used to his new hand yet. He could grip things but gripping them tightly was another task in itself; in his mind there was an easy comparison between his hand and one of those claw machines at a fairground. He knew he had to let go and intercept him, maybe even distract him even though the super soldier seemed un-phased that he was holding onto his leg.

 With a shake of his head he detached himself from Steve’s arm, but the man seemed relentless in the pursuit of Peter. His boots gained more momentum and kept him upright with a small hitch before he began to soar through the sky in his dynamic, straight posture toward Steve. He did manage to catch a glimpse of the round shield on his back, clipping his fingers around it and yanking it off Steve’s back and holding it up.

“Cap, look! Catch!” he said, throwing it at him to try and at least slow him down, though not throwing it hard enough to hurt him. Steve was smacked in the back before he had the time to turn around and he jolted in the air, spinning around and grabbing the shield, with a growl, placing it on his back.

“Interference shall not be tolerated,” he replied, this time readying his repulsor toward Tony. Even when he was behaving like this, it didn’t stop Tony from having some sort of faith that Steve was really there and not just in a physical form.

_He’s not a fake, he’s real._

Tony flew off, trying to keep Steve on his trail but the super soldier had other things in mind. He analysed the two and Peter was the weaker target, especially since he was already injured and had an open head wound that could easily be exploited. He’d already begun thinking like a machine.

Taking the junction, he followed the younger man instead, tracking down Peter with ease, holding out his arm as the forearm plate popped out, revealing a missile which he timed perfectly, and releasing it between the pendulum swings of Spiderman.

There was a huge bang as Peter was struck to the ground, Steve following the falling body and catching him mid-air, doing a dip and then flying toward one of the many jets that were flying by. With the speed he was going he could catch up to a moving jet in no time, a door flinging open and hands reaching out for the fallen spider, taking him in whilst Steve flew to find the second target.

It took Tony a moment to realise that Steve wasn’t trailing him, cursing himself.

_I should’ve installed rear mirrors._

Doing a U turn, he flew back toward where he had lost Steve, looking from side to side but seeing nothing but fallen web tendrils attached to the skyscrapers. Everything looked the same, every building had the same sterile look to it – they were all tall, sharp edges, square windows. He could’ve sworn if he counted the number of windows each building would have exactly the same. When he was mentioning a sci-fi Nazi scenario in his mind earlier he didn’t realise how everything started to be fitting into that exact setting the more he looked into it. Everything looked identical and lacked colour – in fact, the most colour he’d seen all day was in the ruins of the dingy hospital.

_Robot Nazi’s that are turning people crazy with these chips and hunting down superheroes… Now that’s a legitimate theory._

His mind drifted back to Carol momentarily, knowing that he’d have to go back to see her and tend to her wounds. But she was a fighter, she could withstand a couple of hits. Now his main concern was catching up with Peter.

It felt as though he was flying through a maze with all of these symmetrical, non-distinguishable buildings.  He raised his jets, aiming to get a little higher onto the rooftops so he could get  a bird’s eye view of things, though that meant he’d be easily spotted, he just had to rely on his speed and luck just for that quick moment.

It was easier to tilt his head upward since he didn’t have his helmet. As he did, he was reminded of the injuries that he’d incurred earlier, that sharp pain shooting down from the base of his neck down his spine. With a quick cringe, he shook off the pain, catching sight of Captain America handing the boy over, and the jet flying away. He needed to catch that jet up, and now the decisions were starting to weigh up; go and help Carol, follow Steve or save Peter.

If I could, I’d flip a three sided coin, they probably exist nowadays.

_Man, I feel old._

Peter was his priority, he was young, he was strong and he had the most to lose from all of this. The question was, was his armour up to the challenge?

He had to focus all of the energy he could, communicating with his suit through the micro-electrons that ran through his bloodstream, sending messages through as though activating an entirely new neuro-system, finally with that command his propulsion unit accelerated – sending him up into the air, and following the jet as fast as he could. Even though he was chasing Peter, Cap and Carol were still in the back of his mind. He couldn’t deny that Steve was his focus of thought, the way their eyes locked and for a second he could’ve sworn things were just the same as they once were, though he knew that was most probably just wishful thinking.

Once more he had to shut his eyes just for a while as his suit picked up more and more speed, aiming toward the jet that was flying away and out of his grasp. He had to open his eyes, even if this would hurt him. Slowly his eyelids fluttered open, immediately filling with tears at the speed he was going. He reached out an arm as the wing of the jet came close, gritting his teeth and pushing with all of his might.

He was caught off guard by the sudden spasm in his boots as the power level began to become irregular in his newly fitted boot – more specifically, the augmented leg.

The jet was beginning to spit fire instead of producing a constant stream, and it was throwing him off balance, having to integrate this sort of system onto tech that was terrible to start with was like trying to make a diamond out of dirt. It just wasn’t going to happen. He wobbled in the air, moving to and fro, holding his arms out and using his palm repulsors to try and get some sort of balance. It was jittery, but with that quick fix he’d managed to stabilise his flight, reaching again for the wing that seemed so far away again. He pushed himself and narrowed his eyes, focusing again as he launched himself toward the plane. 


	14. Fugo

He could see his armoured fingers touch the steel, finally getting a grip of it and using the planes speed to steady himself. Once he heaved himself onto the wing he ran, staggering from the movements of the vehicle to try and reach for the door, spring boarding off the wing toward the door. Either that, or he’d have to blast a hole into the plane to bring it down, but he’d rather not risk the lives of the crew on board. Even if they were some sort of cyber Nazi-police force. That reminded him to find out more about these people later – all he knew is that once heroes were caught they were never seen again, and that simply wasn’t good enough in terms of information. Tony was all about the details.

“I’ve got you, Peter!” he shouted, mainly to reassure himself.

Tony leaped off the wing and grabbed the ledge of the plane, keeping his boot jets going whilst he dangled, letting his boots gain more power and slowly rise into the air reaching up for the door handle or something to grip onto to tear it down. He inched closer his metal fingers wrapping around the silver handle.

Wham!

He was sent flying, being tackled and yanked downward as he watched the door he was trying so hard to reach slip away further and further. His eyes widened sharply as he squirmed and tried to fight, but the grip around him was just getting tighter and tighter. With a mighty kick he managed to push his way out of the vice grip, flying back and praying that the jets on his back were enough to keep him upright, knowing that his boots were faulty.

The other man hovered in the air opposite him, staring with eyes that could burn deep into his soul.

“You know Steve, I would’ve gotten back to you, but I need to save Peter first.”

“You are not going anywhere,” he replied mechanically.

Tony narrowed his eyes, “They’ve done something to you, I know they have. The Steve I knew wouldn’t have done that, and he wouldn’t be working for some evil communist regime.”

Steve lurched closer, his own repulsors glowing as the other man attempted to get through to him but to no avail. “You are a threat to the humans, along with the rest of your race.”

“My race? I’m a human, Steve, as are you; as are Peter and Carol and Jessica.”

“Superhumans are not humans. They are threats. Did you not view what happened with your previous comrade?”

_Okay, so Steve would definitely not use the word ‘comrade’._

“You’re starting to sound a lot like Barnes, with that sort of talk. You know, when he was brainwashed and all.”

The mention of Bucky caused a hitch in his breath. Nonetheless, the armoured soldier kept his guard up, even as Tony managed to make a small circle around him without taking him out of sight once. The jet was far gone by now, but that wouldn’t stop Tony from doing his best to track it. “That hit home huh? You remember Barnes right? Bucky Barnes, your friend, served alongside us, took your place when you’d fallen. Where is he now, Steve? Where’s Bucky?”

Steve snarled and reached around his back for his shield; now Tony knew he’d really found a sore spot and he was going to poke it until he’d gotten some answers. He couldn’t beat him on strength, that much was clear, so Tony would have to find some way to break him down. The armoured blond furrowed his eyebrows and lifted his shield, without ground to stand on he was fully reliant on his force. 

The swift motion and kiss of Vibranium skimming past his cheek made Tony back away the instant he felt it, managing to swerve in a not so elegant manner. He touched his hand to his face momentarily to see the crimson pour from the cut, staring up at Steve again who managed to recall his shield with a simple hand command.

_So the shields been chipped too, probably. A homing device that’s compatible with the suit. Nice, I’ll give credit when it’s due._

The only problem was that he hated that Norman had thought of it before him.

“So you’re part of this police force right? Trying to take down superhumans? Why? Who are you working for?”

He knew Norman was the brains behind the systems, but whether he was truly in charge was another thing he needed confirming. Tony prayed internally that the government had just changed hands. He could deal with politicians, but not mad scientists.

Steve stared at him directly, “Our supreme leader sees super humans as a threat. They will be eliminated at all costs. Proof of super humans causing destruction; chemical bombings world-wide.”

“We didn’t cause those, are you absurd? Why would we get ourselves killed trying to stop these things! Why would we be the cause of it!”

“Suicide bombings are a common ruse.”

The more Steve talked the more Tony’s hair began to stand on edge. He sounded like a completely different person and he refused to let this be the new Steve.

“Heroes do not do that, we fight terrorists.”

“You claim to be the righteous side, just as terrorists claim to be,” Steve tilted his head in the half mask he was in, his face cupped by the chin piece and underside of the helmet.

“I don’t claim, I _know_ we were doing the right thing. We were _saving lives!”_

His arm began to tremble as he held it out to support the failing leg, unable to keep this up for a lengthy period of time. The armour was heavy and the power chip was clearly not compatible with his leg and it was causing it to malfunction. He grit his teeth together and tried to shift without Steve noticing any area of weakness, since he knew well that he’d hone in on it.

Steve shook his head, “Your kind were the cause of this. Because of you, thousands are suffering from neural illnesses, thousands are dependent on augmentation. Our Supreme Leader is the one who has managed to fix us, to be our saviour, to protect us by destroying heroes.”

“So they were his orders? To kill all heroes? So what about all of these people going on killing sprees, killing these heroes, are they under orders too?”

“No one is going on killing sprees. Humans are safe,” he clarified.

“And what about you? You’re a super human too, with that serum of yours! You’re basically a giant walking man on steroids!” he barked back.

It pained him to do so, but again he knew that treading on anything that would get Steve agitated may get him to reveal more information, and at this point he was piecing together everything he could get.

“I am modified for perfection,” came the reply, clear and simple.

He held his shield ready, doing the same spin and sending the Vibranium serrated disk toward Tony.

It was time to use the knowledge that Steve had instilled in him; think like your enemy. That’s how the man had saved him in the field many times, but had also gotten the upper hand when fighting him in the ring. It was only during the war that he had realised that it was one of the most important lessons that the Captain had ever taught him.

_Dodge to the left, put full propulsion power into boot thrusters, and just pray that it doesn’t cut out this time._

He bypassed the disk and leaped forward as quickly as he could, latching onto the scaly fabric of Steve’s costume just above the abdominal plating. He stared up at him, giving him a comfortable smirk. His actions seemed counterintuitive, even to him, but he knew his logic would prevail – although not with 100% certainty.

“Nice to be this close again, am I right, partner?” he mocked.

Though in reality it was nice, at least for Tony. Terminator Steve, on the other hand, had a differing perspective.

With a flick of his wrist he began to recall his shield, though by this time Tony was reaching around to the back of Steve’s head, slipping his fingers past his blond locks until he’d reached the short shaven part just by the nape of his neck. His fingers fumbled, internally apologising as he began to dig the sharp metal fingers of his augmented appendage into the back of them. If he was anything like the others he’d have a chip in him, hoping that it was like Peter’s if any. There was a lot of luck involved in his thought process, and unfortunately Tony Stark wasn’t the luckiest of men.

An incredulous yell escaped Steve’s mouth as the man tried to kick Tony away and maintain flight, though luckily enough Tony was clinging onto him like a sloth, so he didn’t have to do the same. Apologising profusely internally, he managed to dig into the super soldiers skin and try and feel around for the same chip. Surprise surprise, there was a panel he could feel. His eyes widened with triumph.

“Bingo.”

The shield was being beckoned back at a quick rate, spinning toward them and knocking Tony hard in the back, denting his armour; as if his back wasn’t suffering enough that day. He yelped in pain and quickly punched at the panel in desperation as he felt his leg booster finally short out in that leg and then slid down, still trying to grip onto the skin that he’d torn but not wanting to make the wound any worse than it was. After all, it was still Steve that he was dealing with.

The punch had made the super soldier falter too, he staggered in the air and nearly fell, quickly kicking into action again the moment he felt the surge of pain run down his spine. There was a warm spark he felt for a while, luckily it was that same jolt that brought him back to consciousness before he’d fallen completely, glad that his own thrusters were keeping him a lift.

Tony slipped even further at the jerky movements of the man he was gripping onto. He needed to use his hand repulsors again to keep him upright, but that’d mean losing support from Steve entirely. He had to risk it, so he pushed himself off the man and attempted the hand thrusters just as he’d done before.

There was a shake, the puffing sounds, the fizzle of internal circuits. Then the fall began.

Every single calculation flashed through his mind and he wriggled and squirmed to try and find some sort of solution. His chest filled with pain as his reactor faltered and it was then he was struck with the realisation of his impending doom.

_Straighten up your body, breathe. Breathe._

His eyes filled with panic as he felt the force of gravity weigh on his suit, descending from the sky as though he were Icarus. Steve was his sun, clearly, and just having made contact with him sent a warmth through his body that couldn’t be expressed through words.

Now he fell away from him, falling faster and faster, soaring through the sky as his eyes stared at the man he had grasped. His reactor flickered from trying to distribute the power, his repulsors dimmed.

Was this the final flight of Tony Stark? 


	15. Angelus

He watched the man hovering in the air and shut his eyes, not wanting this to be the last image he saw of Steve. Steve was his guardian angel; he was his rudder, his support. His hand reached toward him, trying to obtain the unobtainable.

_It’s true, your life does flash before your eyes._

He saw his moments with the soldier; every time he had smiled, every time they had hugged or just brushed by. Steve was his life. He’d known that for a very long time. Even before he got a second chance at one.

_I wanted a guardian, I searched my entire life for one, and now I’ve found him… And he’s slipping away._

_Steve…_

His body fell numb.  He let the air carry him, accepting his fate. He held his arms outward and rest his head back, the winds cutting through his soft hair.

It must have been a beautiful sight for the people below to just watch a man fall with such poise.

As he was about to hit the ground he felt a metallic thud against him, had he fallen toward a building instead? Another metallic clang and screech and he meekly opened his eyes to behold what the commotion was about.

There he was, gripping him tightly, arms wrapped around his back and holding him. His angel had returned and once again saved him from the decent to hell before the flames had a chance to kiss his skin.

“Steve..?” he asked, weakly. His chest in more agony than any part of his body, drained of energy.

“T-tony…” he stuttered in return. The back of his neck was bleeding and tainting his hair, though there was a spark too, and a little smoke. Sheer luck was on Tony’s side, he’d really managed to do something to that chip.  Whatever that something was, it had freed him.

Steve’s eyes were darting about erratically as he held Tony, gliding down to the city alleys.  Tony’s chest jolted and he winced, gazing up at the man whose silhouette was highlighted by the risen sun.

Civilians began to leave their homes and resume their natural state, although to their horror there were some portions of the city that had been destroyed overnight by the on-going conflict between superheroes and berserkers. Luckily they were in the safety of the high walls again.

Steve looked down at the man, his head aching and the back of his neck sore, sending surges of pain through his entire body through his spine.

“S-S-Steve…” he cried out.

“I’ve got you, pal…” the man replied with just as much pain in his voice.

“We…need to get that thing working again, huh?” he said, tapping the reactor with a stiff movement of his hand.

“Jump start…” he mouthed.

The memory of Tony in hospital flashed through his mind and how they had to practically jumpstart his heart again; using Thor’s powers and his shield. Though now, they didn’t have Thor’s help. Thor had been absent from Midgard for a long while, and none of them knew why.  

“How?” he asked, looking from side to side. Looking around was like regarding the world after the first time he’d woken up, a stranger in a strange land. He pushed himself up and quickly glanced around, far too hesitant to leave Tony in the state that he was in.

He ran toward a car after he made sure the dark haired man was resting against a wall and ripped open the bonnet, staring at all of the wires that had now become unfamiliar.

Everything had changed, not only the people. Cars were all electronic, and it wasn’t much of a surprise that Oscorp’s brand label was on the engine. He tore some of the wires out that he thought he could use as connectors and then returned back to Tony’s side, trying to connect his own star shaped reactor to Tony’s flickering one. He’d done hotwiring before, and he’d certainly jumpstarted a car; hell, the super soldier had even defused a bomb . He wasn’t as technology illiterate as many people deemed him to be. Luckily Tony had faith in him; he’d always had faith in him.

Attaching it to any bolt he could find then trying to do the same to Tony’s chest plate was much harder; a simpler design meant he could barely find a wire amongst the solid steel blocks. Eventually he did, and he took a deep breath as he began to feel Tony’s reactor reach through the wire for power, as though he were sucking out energy through a straw.

When Tony’s reactor began to stabilise instead of flicker, Steve pulled the wire out and took a deep inhalation of breath, carding his own gauntlet covered hand over his hair and pulling out the chin piece so he could move his mouth properly.

Tony just laid there, eyes shut, even though his reactor was glowing. The Captain’s eyes were still filled with worry and he lifted the chest plate off him, pressing on his chest to get nothing in return. His heart was racing so quickly he was sure he could hear the rhythm in his ears.

Slowly he leaned closer, doing what Tony had once done to him, pressing his dry lips to Tony’s moist ones. He felt the stubble of his beard tickle his upper lip even as he breathed into him, his hands cupping the man’s face. Then there was a movement, and Steve opened his eyes to notice how Tony’s foot seemed to wriggle. Then they returned back to the dark haired man’s face only to see him looking up with wide dark blue eyes. He pulled back, looking at Tony who grinned in return and then pouted.

“Aw, why’d you stop? I was enjoying it.”

Within a split second Steve’s expression shifted from concern to apoplectic. Then greeted the man who had just awoken with a smack across the face, forgetting his hand was now covered with metal. Tony swung his head to the side and winced in pain, clutching the spot on his jaw.

“I’m sorry.” Steve muttered before he lifted Tony up and pulled him into his arms into a tight embrace.  “You idiot, Tony...! Don’t you dare do that ever again!”

_So I deserved that punch, but it was totally worth it._

He found himself clinging to Steve. That touch of their lips made him shiver, and he wanted more of it. The same sensation that he’d craved ever since it had happened years ago. Ever since they’d had inside jokes with each other about their prior ‘almost-kisses.’ Tony had always been the cruder one, but he prayed that Steve knew how much it really meant to him. Their first kiss was the kiss of life, and he would cherish that moment forever.

“It’s you… It’s you again,” he blabbered. That exchange of stares when he had woken up was enough to tell him that was the man he was searching for. “I knew you weren’t dead! Actually no, I thought you were dead, I’m not going to lie to you, but I still hoped that it wasn’t real… And you’re alive, look at you!” he exclaimed, now recharged and full of energy.

_Forget triple espressos – that jumpstart gave me the equivalent energy jolt of a thousand of those._

Steve’s head was hazy, with flashes of memory gradually returning to him, but he returned the tight grip, keeping Tony as secure as he could, but his body continued to involuntarily spasm from the bad circuitry.

Tony heard the metal clank, an indication of the sharp movements that Steve was making. He pressed himself forward, reaching his arms up and then touching the area at the back of Steve’s neck to see what he had to deal with.

Unsurprisingly, there was another flinch the closer he loomed to the wound. “I’m going to take that chip out completely. I’ve done it to Peter and I’ve done something similar to Carol and Jessica, so I know what I’m doing.” He knew Steve didn’t need reassurance, but he provided it anyway.

“Carol and Jessica…? Where are they, what happened?” Steve asked, shutting his eyes when a flash of a memory coursed through his brain, a strange overwhelming feeling befell him, as though he saw them as targets. Especially Carol, with her eyes gleaming with red. He pulled away from Tony and let out a yell of frustration; the man before him backed off quickly and looked up, wondering if he’d touched something he shouldn’t have.

Steve retched in pain, raising his palms to face Tony once more. With the sound of charging repulsors being heard Tony tried to get to his feet, holding up his hands. “Steve? Steve, what’s happened to you? You know I’m trying to help you.”

Steve spoke in that deadpan voice again. “Threat, superhuman…!”

“No, Steve, listen. You’re Steve Rogers, just a second ago you gave me mouth to mouth and punched me then hugged me; okay, that may not make sense, but this isn’t you. You’re not going to kill me!”

The repulsors shot a burning ray which Tony managed to sidestep. His eyes widened and he tried to make his way toward him without being shot in the process.

“Steve, listen to me,” he pleaded. “You’re Captain America, you’re Steven Grant Rogers, you’re a soldier and better yet, my best friend. There, I said it, you’re never going to hear it again so listen close. I mean Rhodey’s my best buddy too, but can’t I have two?”

He shook his head. “You’re my Captain, Steve. You understand me? Can you hear what I’m saying at least?”

He tried to step closer, but every time he did, Steve took a step back, looking behind his shoulder at the mass of people going about their normal routine, and some stopping to stare at the commotion in the alley.

“We need to go before we gather a crowd; last thing I want is this making the headlines. I don’t need negative press in this day and age.”

“You are compromising the safety of these people as a superhero, you will be destroyed.”

Another repulsors headed his way and skimmed his shoulder. The burning singe made Tony make a small yelp of pain but gave him the drive to run forward and grapple onto Steve, shaking his shoulders. “You need to snap out of this!”

He leaned forward.

_Let’s do this how they do it in the fairy tales._

He leaned forward and pushed his lips against Steve’s as forcefully as he could, shutting his eyes with the raw passion that he was trying to show, though he made sure that Steve was the one with his back to the crowd. They’d kept their infatuation under wraps for so long, he couldn’t have it becoming public news now. He pulled Steve closer into the darkness of the alley and continued with the smooch, only to be shoved back and then punched across the face again by the heavy gauntlet.

_Mental note: Real life isn’t a god damn storybook._

He slowly turned his head to face Steve again, “Steve, remember me. Remember who you are!” 

The Captain’s eyes widened, his head began to spin and there were images of him saying those very words to a man in a domino mask swirling in a pool of memories.

“Remember who you are… Bucky…” he whispered out loud, his eyes becoming slightly teary as he shuddered in pain.

Tony didn’t know what exactly he’d triggered, but he caught the tail end of Steve mentioning Bucky’s name, which was a good sign.

He began to tremble, taking a few steps back before falling to his knees and clutching his head, hands digging into his scalp. “B-Bucky!”

The ex-billionaire couldn’t just sit there and watch him suffer, so he rushed forward and placed his hands on Steve’s shoulders, kneeling in front of him. “Come back to me, Steve, please.” There was not a single hesitation in his movement.

Tony caught the way his jaw shivered, the way his pupils dilated and body tensed. “Come back Steve… I need you,” he whispered to him, his eyes going tear-bright at the image before him.

Another yelp of agony echoed from the super soldier, images flashing through his head again and again. The ice, his pal slipping from his grip and flying on a rocket then watching the explosion which made his heart pound with pain all rushed through his mind as though he were seeing it happen again right before his eyes.

That wasn’t the only thing; that was just a gateway to the memories that began to flood his mind.

The next thing he remembered was slipping into the ice cold waters, his eyes open as the darkness slowly enveloped him. He saw the light from the surface and reached for it desperately, his lungs filling with water, the drumming of his heart in his ears as the light slipped further and further away. Then he had woken up to see a man with a metal helmet looming over him and staring through two slits, bright blue eyes that were the first thing he saw, then hearing his muffled voice begin to clear, that smooth low tone. Then the events that followed – all of the adventures with the Avengers, alongside them, even by himself and the return of his beloved companion having been brainwashed and it was that very memory that made his eyes shoot open. 


	16. Memoria

“Remember who you are…” He muttered out loud.

“That’s right, Steve, remember,” Tony pleaded, staying stooped down on his knees in front of the man and placing his hands on his broad shoulders, trying to very cautiously edge toward the back of his neck where the chip was. If he could manage to try and get it out completely then that might stop this from happening. No wonder why Peter was so eager to let Tony get rid of his chip without a question, especially if this was the consequence. The thing is, he didn’t know how dependent Steve was on it, whether that would keep this neuro-destroying airborne toxin from destroying him. Again, Tony was reminded that it was because of his reactor that he was saved from it, and he did notice that Steve had a reactor in his suit; maybe, just maybe there was a chance that he wasn’t dependent on this chip and that he’d be able to survive without it.

His heart paced as he tried to creep closer and closer without seeming too obvious, but it was difficult when Steve kept flinching like that, jerking with movement. Tony understood his pain but he needed to stop it completely. With a rapid movement he pulled the exposed part of Steve’s neck, apologising profusely as he crushed the metallic plate that he could find. Steve’s eyes shot open with pain, his pupils dilating before he fell forward, whispering his friends’ names; Sharon, Sam, Bucky… Tony.

A sad sigh escaped Tony’s lips, but he knew that Steve was still alive. He could feel his soft breathing as he held him close, knowing for sure he had to get him as far away from the public eye as possible. That, and he had to get back to Carol to make sure that she was safe where she was, considering that they left her in such a state back by the park. That and he had to get Peter back from whoever had taken him and he needed to get his helmet back. The first call of action was to return to the hospital and pass the park on the way, that way he could get Carol and take her there too. The main task would be trying to navigate himself back through this foreign place without Peter’s help.

Lifting Steve into his arms he ducked further into the darkness of the alley, trying to avoid the main streets, but immediately reached a dead end. Knowing that he didn’t have enough power for his thrusters, he was left with no other choice but to go into the main streets that he once wandered. 

Steve wasn’t completely unconscious, he was still there and mumbling gibberish, his arms tightly wrapped around Tony who was having trouble balancing the weight of the man in his arms upon his unstable augmentation. Not to mention Steve had gotten significantly heavier with all of that armour of his. At least that gave Tony more parts to work with; Steve was a super soldier, he didn’t really need armour. He could survive without it which meant Tony could have more material to utilise. 

But that could all be done as soon as they returned to the confines of the hospital; at least then he could do what he wanted with surgical equipment that was lying around rather than a shard of sharp acrylic. He wanted to do everything he could to prevent causing Steve more pain.

The crowd that was by the entrance of the alleyway still hadn’t dispersed, watching the wide curious empty eyes stare at him as he stepped further out. He frowned instantly, giving them a growl and holding Steve protectively, huddling his head away from them and closer to his own chest. He staggered, still in pain from the previous fights. He knew he had to push through all of the pain to get the man he loved back into shape.

Walking out and shooting a glare at the crowd, he took heavy steps into the busy city. Though just like when he had first walked outside he saw that people were walking in packs rather than by themselves. They seemed to move in groups in a synchronised fashion and again crowded in front of televisions that were playing another presidential announcement. This time the screen was showing footage from the battle the night before; with Carol going berserk with the message ‘Superheroes go rogue, beware’ on a scrollbar underneath the video footage.

“Tch.”

_I can’t believe they’re making superheroes look like the bad guys, no wonder there are these hero massacres going on… Even the president is putting these ideas in their head. Either way, I’ll talk to the guy. I’ve got a certain way with politicians. That explains a lot. After all, Nick wanted me to find out why and who was killing these guys and it doesn’t take a genius (even though I am one), to figure out the motive behind these killings. But these people seem so harmless, so innocent. Hell I wonder if…_

_Time to test out a theory._

He walked up to one of the people that seemed to walk past in their group, giving them a light shove on the shoulder. They turned, looked at him, and then just carried on with the group, continuing with that blank stare.

There wasn’t even a sound from them; not a single reaction aside from the head turn and dead stare.

_They’re brain-dead but they’re doing their jobs… They’re basically like drones. They couldn’t kill anyone even if they were punched in the face, so what’s with the guys from earlier going insane and killing Jessica..?_

That made him wonder; was this chip that was to prevent neural damage actually causing it rather than preventing it?  

The person that he shoved turned around, pivoting on a foot in a demon like fashion with eyes widened, holding up a wrench was surely augmented, and a small pipe just above the forearm rose.

“Heroes are threats, they must be destroyed,” she spoke, shooting a blast of fire at Tony. He ran as fast as he could away, only to look over his shoulder once he had managed to get a fair distance away and noticing that the person had just gone back to their routine, their walking pattern, as though nothing had happened. He had to catch his breath just for a second, having run with that heavy weight in his arms.

_Okay, so I asked for that. But they’re saying exactly what was on those screens…Repeating it word for word. Brainwashed? I think so._

He didn’t have time to linger, but as he walked he thought about it. It was difficult to piece everything that had happened together, but he knew for sure that Oscorp was behind it. Passing down streets that had no particular benchmark to determine where he was, he just hoped he was going the right way. Everything looked so similar and it actually made him cringe, especially since it wasn’t his type of classy architecture. It was monotonous and dull and the shapes were boring, even from an amateur design perspective.

The engineer kept glancing at the alleys to see if there were any more potential allies hiding in there as he carried Steve, staggering a couple of times and then quickly trying to regain his balance as the man’s feet dragged on the floor. The scrape of metal against concrete made a sound that made Tony cringe, but he carried on nonetheless. 


	17. Malum

Walking further, he spotted the bloodstain that was just on the edge of the alley that he passed by. That was it; that was the benchmark he was looking for, although it was one that made his heart hurt, being reminded of the peril that Jessica had gone through before they had to bury her. But from there he could trace his footsteps toward the shadowed part of the city again, it was reassuring to know at least he was close. He had to stop just for a moment and catch his breath, placing Steve down against the wall, ensuring that he was nowhere near the dried puddle of blood.  The man was placed down, slumping with his head hung, still muttering words over and over on loop.

Tony knelt down and tried to look Steve in the eyes, but they were glazed, unfocused and empty. He needed to snap out of it. Tony would give him time to do so, knowing the pain of flooding memories first hand, when he had lost his own memories not so long ago, it seemed. With deep worry he focused on the man before him, placing his hands gently on either side of Steve’s face and ensuring his head was raised, unable to bear him looking so helpless.

He relaxed for a moment, catching his breath and trying to recuperate just for a second, needing to with his injuries and broken armour.

“Inhale, then exhale…” Tony said out loud to himself. When he breathed out, a hand covered his mouth and his eyes shot open, knowing for well he had very little repulsors power left, not when the power regulation system in his suit was malfunctioning because of his faulty augmentations. His body jerked back into the powerful grip as black leather gloves slid over Tony’s mouth, letting out a muffled yelp.

“Shut up,” the dark, gritty voice said from the shadows behind him.

“Mmmph!” he struggled, his hands reaching up and trying to grip the ones that held him, attempting to tear them away with the little strength he had remaining.

“Keep quiet, Tony Stark,” the man said with bitterness as he maneuvered in front of Tony, but trying to maintain his clasp over the ex-billionaires lips. The white bone markings were made visible with the very little light they were in, shrouded by the shadows around them within the narrow walls.

Instantly Tony’s eyes went from shocked to livid, and he raised his eyebrows indignantly. “It’s you!” He managed to shout, breaking free with a yank backward. He raised both of his hands and pointed them at Crossbones, ensuring his palms were facing him. His voice was particularly fuelled with bitterness, considering that this was the very man that had shot Steve before.

To this day, he held a grudge, trying to parry the guilt off himself toward the sniper, although he knew Steve would have never been in that position if it hadn’t been for his action. Blame or not, that was something he had never forgotten. Tony Stark wasn’t afraid to kill. He didn’t like doing it, but he would if he was driven to the extreme. His eyes narrowed, his position crouched ready to obey his instinct when he caught sight of Cap slumped in that corner. He had to move to protect him, but Crossbones seemed to have no intent of going toward Captain America, which was strange. Still, he tried to sidle toward the Captain with tiny sideward steps.

“I wanna make a deal with you. No; you’re going to make a deal with me.” Crossbones said with confidence, smirking behind his mask, his finger by a holster on his hip.

“I don’t dance with the devil,” Tony spat.

“S’not what I’ve heard,” he spoke, his accent heavy. “You’re gonna tell me how you managed to get Parker off the radar.”

“What radar?” Tony growled.

“The supreme leader, that guy in the towa’, he’s got a radar. Huntin’ people with it. Get me and a couple o’ fellas off it and I won’t kill ya.”

Right now that deal was tempting. He couldn’t fight him, nor was he in any condition to.

“If I get that chip out, I want you to tell me more.”

“You ain’t in a deal makin’ position here,” the low voice returned.

“I just want information… Nothing more, and it seems to me like I’m saving your life here.”

Crossbones shook his head, “You’re savin’ your own ass.”

There was a voice from the distance, and a man with a white hood with orange lining stepped out from one of the hidden corners of the alley, “You give us info, and we’ll give it to you,” he said.

Taskmaster was known for double crossing, and Tony had been up against him a long time ago when Sunset hired the guy, but he also knew that he was trusted enough to work alongside SHIELD, given the right amount of cash.

“What are you two supposed to be, the skull brothers?” Tony remarked, the bitter memories of both of them not helping their case. But it seemed now they needed him, and this was their strange way of asking for help.

“If you’re not careful, Tony Stark, then your skull will make a fitting mask for me,” yet another voice said from the same direction as Masters, stepped out the purple cladded villain, Baron Zemo with a sword clutched in his grip.

“You certainly don’t fit in amongst those two,” Tony said with a roll of his eyes, moving closer toward Steve until he was standing right in front of him, arms still held out defensively. 

“Like I said, Stark, we’ll make a deal. Ya do what you need to do and we won’t be usin’ you for the next mask of our gang,” Taskmaster said from behind his mask. “Cap over there ain’t in good shape, you ain’t goin’ to risk it so just do what we tell you to and we’ll give you your info.”

They seemed calm but the way that Masters was negotiating made Tony sense that something was terribly out of line.

“Come here and I’ll show you what to do,” he said, gesturing for Masters to step up to him. Taskmaster was an expert copycat, so at least he could make Tony’s job a little less straining and give him more time to return to somewhere safe to treat Steve properly and repair his armour.

“Tell me while I’m working, what is this radar?” he asked, wondering if Masters knew more specifics. “You worked for Osborn didn’t you? Once upon a time.”

He walked toward Zemo; the man was much leaner than Crossbones was, which made him easier to demonstrate on. He lifted up the purple mask to reveal the man’s neck, and then pulling out the acrylic shard. Crossbones raised his gun out of the holster.

“No funny business.”

“Calm your bones…” Tony sighed, pulling out the acrylic shard and then beginning to make a small incision into the neck. The shard wasn’t the most hygienic thing to use but it was the only tool he had to work with. In the exact same place as Peter’s chip was, was the supposed ‘anti-toxin’ chip which he supposed everyone this day and age had in order to survive. “So, you know about the tracking in this thing huh? What’s it for?”

“Those chips aren’t just trackers, Stark. They’re control chips,” Taskmaster began to explain.

“Don’t be absurd. If that was the case don’t you think all of you would be zombies to the government?”

“Zemo, myself and Crossbones – we were all in prison at the time when these things were first made, after your super pals got their own chips. Call us lab rats, but they were tested on us first. We behave, then they don’t flip the switch.”

“So you’ve actually been behaving; why do I find that hard to believe?” he asked, cutting the wire that he needed to and then taking his time to hear more of the story.

“We’ve been in the sewers and they know it. We step a foot out here on the surface and they know about it too. But they’re happy keepin’ us in the sewers… Like rats. You see, we got the latest chip in us. We can’t take it out of ourselves either without pressin’ on one of those red wires that you can go past. Sure we can help each other but none of us knew tech, and they captured MODOK and got Zola killed by those mobs.”

Tony’s head began to throb with the information. “Okay so let me get this straight. So this is exactly the same as the superhero problem. You know, I was told that all of these superheroes were getting killed in gang killings, getting mobbed and brutally murdered. It wasn’t until recently that I saw it for myself, I saw a friend… Get killed by some over powered, brain dead people. I thought that was because we went out in the open, but what you’re saying about being tracked makes sense. That’s what these chips all have, a tracker. So you’re saying that the government arranges these mobs to kill not only heroes, but villains?”

“Anyone with ‘super powers’. Us included,” Taskmaster confirmed.

“And your chip, the one you three have since you were recently incarcerated, you have a hybrid chip which can potentially engage mind control on you?”

“Seen it for myself; Moon knight was with us, he was caught in that glass cell and he went insane. Went crazy and started attacking everyone, killed your friend in red, the blind punk. Then he just dropped and they took him away… The next day that was aired everywhere. ‘Superheroes are evil’. That headline with the footage was broadcasted around the world, so I’ve been told. Now everyone fears you guys, and we ain’t no different. They can’t tell the difference between us and you,” he explained bitterly, with a hint of disgust trailing his last few words.

“Why didn’t they just kill you?” Tony asked, “When they captured you?”

“Test subjects; you’re a scientist ain’t ya?” Masters moved to do the same sort of surgery on Crossbones, having learned Tony’s technique perfectly merely by observing.

Tony’s eyes darted over to Steve who began to stir and walked over to him, lifting him into his arms again and hugging him close, mainly for his own comfort. It was disturbing to think that this was all some ones lab.

“It all happens in the main tower. The supreme leader resides there. The chips that everyone has, the augmentations, all of it takes place there. At first they thought tracking was enough, now they aim to control. And they will kill anyone who stands in their way.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

“We don’t know. We’ve never seen them… If they’ve managed to brainwash Osborn into working for them, they must be powerful.”

Tony’s eyes widened at the revelation. “Osborn’s brainwashed…?”

“He wouldn’t be workin’ for the government without me if he wasn’t,” Taskmaster confirmed.

_Peter’s chip had a tracker, so it must’ve been an old chip, so the government aimed to capture superheroes and even super villains to test further on them rather than endanger humans. That makes sense, somewhat. So now he was captured, he’d probably get the new updated chip with brain control._

_Maybe that’s why Carol went crazy…_

_And they’re being pawned off as threats and then killed in group killings, probably because of this threat idea that’s being planted into their heads – turning them from brain dead zombies into ruthless killers at night?_

_Wow, this does sound like a messed up sci-fi movie that I sure as hell don’t want to be part of._

“So if you don’t work with this mysterious government and supreme leader, you’ll get used as an experiment?” His arms moved tighter around Steve’s back, hearing the muttering in his ear again which was reassuring, strangely but still made him worry.

“Listen Stark, we don’t know much, but if you act up and you got this chip in you, if you try going toward that tower, then you will get killed by an angry mob or go bat-shit crazy,” Masters so eloquently explained.

“But yes, that’s the basis of it. You rebel, you gather amongst your peers, you’ll be destroyed some way or another,” Zemo added.

“They’re wiping out superheroes and villains, anyone with power… Essentially.”

“Yep.”

“So how do you submit to the government?”

“You gotta have connections. But the time for submitting was over, it was like an amnesty when this thing with the bombs and the chips first started.”

“I’m so confused right now… So the government provided these augmentations? Why help people who aren’t submitting?”

“Oscorp made the augmentations before the government got super involved. They gave them to hospitals, and special augmentation clinics gave them to people, and then after that a select few were asked to submit. Superheroes and us, were asked to submit. The people weren’t asked at all, why ask them? They ain’t going to provide any use. Like your registration act, it’s like that. You give in and then you get to work with the government. Obsorn, Stane, Hammer, Bain – they’re the ones who submitted. We weren’t told about this, none of us were, we found out after the submission period ended. So we were shoved out, whether we liked it or not.”

“That sounds fishy to me, Masters. Why such a small submission window? And with all of those… Technology companies forming an alliance it seems like you were shoved out without an option.”

“Exactly. So we’re becoming lab rats whether we like it or not. All of the superheroes and us types are all stuck tryin’ to cover our own asses without being caught and experimented on. We surface and we’re goners courtesy of giant mobs of people who’ve been brainwashed by their TV to kill anyone with superpowers. They made the excuse of saying that we would be dependent on these things because they’re preventing us from getting damage from the gas, since people who inhaled the gas well… Lost control of their limbs and had to get substitutes. So everyone was chipped regardless with the basic ‘breathing control chip’, and most people have augmentations since they’re becoming a fashion trend right now – they enhance you. Fancy that for plastic surgery huh?”

“That breathing control chip has a tracker in it…” Tony pointed out.

“So they’re tracking them anyway. Oh well, who cares, we’re free now., Taskmaster shrugged.

“So what are you going to do now? Roam around free?”

“You kiddin? We’re goin’ to leave the country at least, but first I wanna pay Baintronics a visit. Show that brainwashed biotch a thing or two about puttin’ a chip in me,” he said, smacking his fist against the palm of his hand. “Then I guess I’ll de-chip the others, for a price.”

“I have a personal score to settle with Justin Hammer, for his treatment of my comrades.”

“I’m goin’ after Stane. He’s the jerk that paid to get this chip in me. They said it’d prevent the damage from the gas of all those bombs but they just lied… ” Crossbones growled as Masters finished working on his chip.

“So that leaves Osborn…”

“He’s the only one still in America, still right here. The rest are scattered across the world.”

 “I’ll deal with him, maybe I’ll get some answers,” Tony said. Never in a million years did he ever think that he’d be co-operating with the people that tried to kill him, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Even if he had a vendetta against Crossbones in particular, if he was helping then he would take the help. Right now he was alone asides from the man he held in his arms who was in dire need of some care, so any ally was a good ally. “He’s in that huge tower, the one I’m supposed to get to anyway, right?”

“Good luck getting in there, that place is like fort Knox,” Taskmaster chuckled darkly, walking back into the shade of the alley and leaping over a wall with ease. 


	18. Reddo

With a one handed salute, keeping Steve hoisted up in his arms he watched the others flee, seeing them move much more rapidly than they approached. And just like that, they were gone, away to deal with the other brainwashed ringleaders as such, who worked for this mysterious supreme leader. Every time something eventful happened he felt the need to lay out a firm plan of action in his mind;

_Get to the tower, save Peter, get all the info out of Osborn that I can, possible schematics and whatnot and slap some sense into this new leader and free the brain dead civilians that are so easily brainwashed by whatever they hear. That was the plan._

_Sounds more like a fairy tale than a sci-fi movie, come to think of it._

_Stop thinking about genres of movies, Stark, you’ve got a super solider to save._

The first thing was first, he needed to get his armour fixed and Steve back into fighting shape and he needed to get his helmet back from the hospital.

Now with all of this information gathered, he was sure that the tower he was going toward was the centre of all of the activity and that would be exactly where he was headed.

Steve’s words began to sound more coherent and less frequent, which was a good sign. Although he still had that glazed look in his eyes, that was probably the repercussion from the chip that Tony had torn at so roughly, but he was going to make sure that all the correct wires were intact, praying that this air borne neural toxin wasn’t making Steve spout these words.  

He began to continue walking through the streets, trying to stay close to the walls and alleys, at least then he wouldn’t attract any attention; not that he’d be noticed if he wasn’t flying around shooting lasers, especially by these sorts of people.

“Tony…”

The muffled whisper made the armoured man stop in his tracks. “Steve? You’re awake?” He asked with an inflection of hope.

“Tony…” he muttered again, raising his head to look at the man. Tony’s expression softened and he placed his hand on the back of Steve’s head, huddling close as he took slow steps, the super soldiers armoured legs still dragging on the floor, only because he was an inch taller, and very heavy.

“I’ve got you Steve, I’ve got you,” he felt compelled to point out, biting on his lower lip, praising whoever it was that brought Steve back to consciousness.

Tony wasn’t a religious man but when good things happened, he needed to thank someone. After all, there weren’t many good things in his life, all considered. But Steve was one of the best things— no, he was _the_ best thing in his life.

Steve shut his eyes again, just resting on the man as he carried him, feeling weak and drained still. Now he was in familiar ground, Tony carried on walking, seeming as though he were trekking across a desert in his mind. It seemed like it at least. He was starving and weak, and each step was becoming more and more agonising. But it was worth it, as long as Steve was alive and well in his arms, everything was worth it.

It was like carrying a fallen angel to a sanctuary, at least that’s where Tony’s imagination had taken him.

There it was, right in front of him; the broken hospital. He turned his head slowly toward the park, seeing nobody there, nothing, just broken slabs of concrete where the previous fight had occurred. Now Carol was missing too, probably captured by these government officials.

He sighed deeply at the loss of his friend, trying to not let it wain on his conscience too much, and began navigating the same way through the rubble as he had entered the first time. Though it did occur to him that jumping through the broken window that he was dragged through earlier was probably a shortcut. Either way, he didn’t want to risk hurting Steve on shards of glass in the process.

He stepped carefully, the rubble making rattling noises as he passed through, metal footsteps echoing throughout the hall. Tony finally spotted the door which he had been in, and took those last steps toward the room, placing Steve on the bed that Peter once rested on and then fell on the other bed, shutting his eyes and taking deep breaths, coughing a little at the initial dust. There it was, looking right at him; his beloved helmet. He reached toward it with hands shaking from fatigue and held it close, giving it a peck on the faceplate before placing it back upon its resting spot.

It was hard to believe the weight of the world was on his shoulders and right now he could only depend on himself, although he would’ve liked to believe that the villains were actually going to help the rebellion somehow.  He was a mess, Tony knew for well he had always been a mess. Whenever he tried to drift into self-loathing Steve was always there to pick him up, hell, he’d saved him from a burning building when he was falling into the abyss, being dragged down by his demons. Steve really was his angel and it had taken him a very short amount of time to realise that, but admitting and confessing was another ordeal entirely.

Now he had an even bigger mess to sort out and he couldn’t even get it straight in his head, and he was a genius; brain control, augmentations, microchips, neuro toxins… It was crazy.

But first: Steve.

He took a sharp breath before sitting up and groaning loudly, feeling particularly old especially after he heard the crack in his spine when it straightened inside his suit, rummaged around the hospital room and pulled out some medical supplies. Luckily enough he found some aspirin, at least which would deal with the pain for now. Swallowing the chalky tablets and then coughing soon afterward, he pulled the box of medical supplies toward Steve and placed them on the floor.

He made stiff steps toward Steve who looked like a regular sleeping beauty. His eyes were shut, his lips slightly parted, skin pale with messy golden hair over it. Tony’s hand trailed down to the armoured segment, which started around his abdomen area and extended down his legs and across his arms, then again at his neck, but that part where the chin piece was being held. Tony removed the upper segment first, so Steve was free to breathe easily and then moved toward the boots. If he could remove them then he could use some of his old Iron Patriot circuitry, if it was still intact, with his current suit to give it a small upgrade, reminding himself that Steve didn’t really need the armour. He was a super soldier; he’d be able to survive without armour weighing him down. That was always Steve’s excuse anyway whenever Tony suggested designing a suit for him.

He fastened the snap on the boot that he was familiar with and then tugged at it, looking up at Steve since he was trying not to wake him. Luckily the man was a heavy sleeper, that’s what 70 years in the ice does to a person.  With a small wriggle and tug he managed to get the metal to slip off, his eyes filling with shock to the sight before him. Steve’s leg was a metallic branch that was connected to the foot of the suit. Tony clasped his hand over his mouth for a second, remembering how the man was caught in the explosion. He didn’t even question how he managed to look so perfect when he had encountered him, because Steve always looked like that; he was perfection personified. He felt empty looking at it, knowing that if he’d protected Steve then he wouldn’t have this injury, once more self-loathing and guilt were weighing upon his conscience.  His bottom lip quivered and he could feel the overwhelming burden embrace him, gently sinking to his knees, his fingers sliding upon the metal augmentation just before his knees hit the ground. He breathed deeply, his breath catching into a short huff. Was he actually crying? His body was trembling but he knew he had to be stronger, he knew he shouldn’t cry, that this needed to be stopped and sitting there crying about it wasn’t going to help anybody. 


	19. Levamentum

He brushed his hand over his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, his breath stifling as he slowly pushed himself up, only to be helped up by the gauntlet covered hand that was closer to his shoulder. Tony looked up at Steve, who held him with a look of concern and worry. That shoulder clasp was what he truly needed; it was their way of reassuring each other with no words needing to be exchanged. Their eyes crossed, even in the dark room and Tony rose to his feet, moving to sit on the side of the bed, looking down at the skeleton frame of a leg that Steve had without the boot cover on it, reminding him of his own augmentation. It occurred to him then that he would never feel what it was like to tangle their legs together, to feel the skim of his toes against his own.

Steve sat up where he was, his hand moving to cup Tony’s face and look at him straight in the eyes. The last thing he could remember was seeing him engulfed in fire, but that was probably the same fire that took him. He recalled the pain in his heart that day, the exact same feeling that Tony felt. Upon watching Tony slip off his own gauntlet, looking at his hand back and forth, examining it in his regular curious manner, Steve copied him and removed the gauntlet to reveal his augmented hand too.

Tony’s eyes once more saddened at the sight of it, and then reached down; removing Steve’s other boot cover, and then his other gauntlet. He sighed heavily and found that the more he was discovering the more grief it caused. There was hesitance in his action when he reached for the edge of Steve’s shirt, but the super soldier nodded, giving him his consent. He rolled up the familiar, star spangled uniform to see that most of his torso was covered in the metal plating, with a giant star shaped reactor in the centre, but the metal was somewhat transparent and it was strange; instead of wiring Tony could see a fusion of circuitry and clockwork wheels. He’d become a clockwork soldier.  

“Oh god…!” Tony blurted out, placing his hands over the reactor and then falling on top of him, mourning the super soldier’s dependency on technology. Steve stood for the old fashioned American way, but now it was all stripped away from him, because of a single incident. Tony could feel Steve breathe in deeply, realising that after snapping out of it, that this must’ve been the first time that he too had seen what had happened to him. He’d lost his arms and legs, and the left side of his chest down to his abdomen was covered in a plate embedded into the remaining skin and of course, the reactor. He clenched his jaw tightly as Steve met his eyes again, giving him a brush along the nape of his neck with those cold, thin metal fingers.

_I’ll never hold his hand. I’ll never feel how warm it was again… I’ll never hear his heart…_

Tony’s teeth began to grind together and he pressed his ear against the star shaped light, hearing the soft buzz that now replaced a heartbeat. His hands reached up and laced with Steve’s, feeling a need to be close to him, needing to hear him, to just be by his warmth. It was comforting just having him there, no matter what state he was in. Steve was his rudder, he always would be.

Steve could see the pain in the other man’s expression; the way his jaw clenched was a clear enough tell. He couldn’t do much to put him at ease, but he did trail his fingers down Tony’s neck toward the armour plate.

As soon as he felt the movement, Tony shed his armour plate, reaching for the fastens and tugging them off, revealing his golden undersuit. He practically threw it off to clutch himself to Steve’s chest, his jaw still tightly clenched as his palm pressed against the cold plate, watching the cogs move like the insides of a clock. He could feel Steve, but the question was could the man feel him? Well the augmentations, regardless of who they were made by, were sophisticated and he could feel pain in his legs and arm when they were hit.

He had to shut his eyes, but he kept telling himself that he wouldn’t cry that this wasn’t something to be sad over. They had encountered too many evils in their lives for him to break down now. But his pillar was crumbling right before him, weakened and broken. His chest felt heavy, his breaths were short and he tensed his muscles to stop his body from shaking any further. He couldn’t imagine what Steve was feeling, but as usual the soldier kept a face of stone, taking it all on the chin as he would say.

Tony slowly opened his eyes to look up at him to see the man staring up at the ceiling, his strong square jaw tightened.

“I’ll never get to hear your heart…” Tony whispered.

Steve’s stare turned to Tony, “I can feel yours.”

He shook his head with a woeful smile, “We’re the same now… I guess.”

“Your heart is here, and I can feel it…” Steve replied in that strong, confident tone, placing his hand over Tony’s reactor and seeing a tiny spark when the metal hand touched the glowing light.

“How?”

“Like this…” Steve said, leaning closer and pressing his lips to it, making Tony’s expression soften instantly, his breath hitching for a moment from the shock.

They both needed each other, they both had parts missing, they were both in dire need of being complete again and this affection was what Tony had been searching for. Steve needed it too, after waking up, trying to process everything himself.  It was as though their history together had led up to this moment, all of the battles, all of the arguments, and there they both were – in a rickety old hospital, trying to get back into full health.

“Steve Rogers...” Tony muttered, leaning down and resting the edge of his chin on Steve’s head, happily sat over his lap.

“I can still feel that you have a heart, and that you always have. Despite everything that’s happened, you’ve never once lost this.” He said.

_I needed this… I need him._

Tony launched himself forward and pressed his lips against Steve’s, his eyes tightly shut. This seemed like the end of the world to him, so now he could carry on without regret.

_He’s not pulling back… His lips are soft…_

Tony knew that they had always had that connection and never acted upon it, but Steve seeing Tony in such a desperate state had finally been the key to the lock. The man was affectionate when it came down to the line, and now they knew mutually.

From the sheer emotion and intensity of the kiss, a small tear was squeezed from Tony’s shut eyelids.

He pulled back and instantly brushed his face with his metallic palm, trying to hide his face from Steve. “You were trying to kill me earlier, you know.”

Steve stared, wide eyed, still flustered from the kiss but his eyes showing that he yearned for more. “What?” He asked in a breath.

“You were brainwashed… That’s why your head was hurting, there was a chip…” His hand reached behind Steve’s neck and lightly touched his fingertips to his neck, just over the wound but not touching it enough to cause him pain again. “…Here.”

Steve flinched lightly then let Tony stay as close as he was, wrapping his arms around the man’s lean frame, fingers gliding down his back wishing he could feel him more, his eyes saddening.

“Don’t blame yourself Steve, we’ll find who did this and we’ll hunt them down. I promise you.” He spoke with conviction, comforted by the touch near the arch of his spine. He pulled back to press their foreheads together.

“That’s not what I’m upset about.”

“Then what?”

“I can’t… Feel you, Tony. Not with these.” He stuttered, looking at his new hands that were made of sparkling chrome each finger curling in tandem. “I could feel your heart just not… You.”

Without hesitation, and more in desperation Tony shut his eyes and kissed Steve’s cheek, then the corner of his lips, nearing the centre, but instead of planting a kiss once he neared the middle, he drew inches back and whispered. “Can you feel me now?” He whispered, his lower lip still trembling.

Steve shut his eyes too, just to savour the feeling before whispering, “Yes.”

Tony took that silence that followed as a sign of no protest. He kissed the rose coloured lips in front of him, locking their lips together and tilting his head, his arms wrapped around the super soldiers broad shoulders, giving them reassuring rubs from time to time. He shifted in Steve’s lap, intensifying the kiss by tilting his head once more, breathing in deeply, and then exhaling through his nose with a loud huff; breaking it to only lay a strip of wetness with the tip of his tongue, gently easing back into the movement.

_God… I love him…_

The brush of their lips was electrifying; it sent shudders down Tony’s spine, and Steve felt just the same. He needed more, they both needed more.

The kiss heated and Tony began to make soft sound under the kiss, not whimpers, but mewls of satisfaction, having finally after all these years met the lips of someone he had held so dear. Pieces of his memory began to flash through his head, and the instant that he had reached the segment where they were at war he found himself screwing his eyes up tighter. Pushing more and more of himself into the kiss, wishing that event had never happened.

Tony’s words echoed in his mind and he broke the kiss, breathing softly. “I want this…” Steve found himself saying, his eyes opening to a half lid.

Tony wanted to feel unbroken, he wanted to touch the man and for his heart to lift at every single utter.

The Captain knew that Tony was taking too much of the lead, and he certainly wasn’t used to it. He planted his lips on Tony’s neck, watching the golden undersuit recede a bit to reveal his chest, stopping just at his waist. He placed his lips to his skin, biting lightly, wanting to show his presence. He may have been subdued because of his injuries, because of his shock and his head, but Steve Rogers was still present and he sure as hell was still Captain America.

“Steve, I’ve missed you… Steve-!” He was cut off by the sharp pain in his neck, making him wince and instinctively wriggle his hips on the other man’s lap. The dark haired man couldn’t help but groan at the sucking he felt on his neck, feeling the heat rise. Steve was relentless, biting and sucking on the same spot until he was sure it was bright red.  “What are you doing..?”

“I need to feel you, taste you.” He replied bluntly.

Steve’s honesty was a trait Tony admired but one that made him purr, especially when it echoed with such confidence. Needless to say, it was Steve’s confidence that Tony not only admired, it also was a turn on.

“What was that? I didn’t hear…” He said with a soft smirk.

“I need to feel you.” He said, raising his tone an octave, biting down hard onto Tony’s skin but not breaking it, very close to. “Tony.”

His heart began to sore at the utter of his name.

_He needs me…_

It was like music to his ears.

Steve dipped his head lower to kiss his reactor again and Tony let out a broken groan, the strange sensation being so satisfying. “Keep going…”

“You’re enjoying this..?” Steve asked, peering up through his long eyelashes, sharp features highlighted by the reactor glow.

He nodded without a second thought, “You’re so… Smooth.” Steve’s metal fingers rubbed up and down his sides, the cold metal against him making him shudder and purr. With each touch he was becoming dizzier with lust, tilting his head back and enjoying the attention he was receiving. No one cared for him like that, not a single person he had been with had displayed the tenderness that Steve was doing at that moment in time.

“I want to feel more of you…” Steve said, dazzling eye looking up, biting on Tony’s lower lip. It dragged and Tony was pulled down by the strong grip.

“Go ahead.” Tony said, stretching his body over Steve’s, feeling his muscles through the torn garb, his fingertips curling around the base of the fabric and looking up to get that stare of consent. With that he lifted the shirt over the man’s arms, being careful not to catch them on the metal hinges that were now in place of his knuckle.

He was confident and gentle, they both were, but right now Tony wanted to see more of the Captain.

He pushed his barely clothed hips against Steve’s, rubbing over the fabric, trying to figure out in his mind how this would work.

“Let me look after you this time, Tony, you’ve done enough for me. You brought me here, you kept me safe… I vaguely remember something with Crossbones…”

Tony tilted his head, used to being the one doing the looking after, not the other way around.

“Let me…” Steve urged, placing his hand between Tony’s legs and gently rubbing over the skin tight material. His hand made a soft massaging motion, timid at first, but then putting a bit more pressure.

He could feel the cold metal which made a shiver jolt down his spine, but he eased into it, being nothing like he had ever felt before.  Tony bit his lower lip, “More.” He whispered.

Steve’s hand carried on, fondling the bulge that was slowly unveiled as Tony’s undersuit slipped lower and lower, letting the Captain touch his raw skin.

“You can undress me.”

With a thick swallow Tony followed the Captain’s command, appreciating it even. If Tony was going to be naked, he would’ve preferred if Steve were in the same situation; maintaining their equality, although it was clear in this instance that Steve was the one in change, particularly given Tony’s strangely emotional state which he was going to blame entirely on their reunion. It had been so long, too long.

He tossed the boxers to one side, stripping him of his trousers.

 

There the man lay, muscular, beautiful, despite all of the technological enhancement, staring up with powerful eyes and that powerful expression. Steve’s hands continued with the light fondles, making Tony blush lightly especially now he was touching his length, each touch exciting him more and more. He took a moment to appreciate his body, but it was hard to when he could feel tingles of pleasure when Steve caressed his excitement. Tony let out a deep groan when the Captain’s fingertips moved to caress his inner thigh instead.

“Go back up…” Tony pleaded.

“You’re so eager…”

“You have no idea.” He said, guiding Steve’s hand up with his own, allowing the man to lightly take grip of Tony’s length, sliding his fingers up and down. There was a soft hum from Steve’s reactor, and that light vibration that ran through his clockwork and circuitry could be felt. There was a light pulsation as Steve merely held him, making his lips part and his breathing becoming rougher. “My Steve…”

“Yours?”

“Right now…”

Steve let out a low chuckle, gently pumping his hand along Tony’s length whilst Tony placed the palms of his hands on Steve’s chest, one on the metallic half, the other on his actual skin.

Tony shut his eyes and rocked his hips ever so gently against the hand, encouraging each motion that was being made, keen to show how much he was enjoying it. It had seemed like forever since they had been together, and this was their first time in such an intimate circumstance, even though it felt as though they had been there before Tony knew that was only probably from the copious amounts of dreams he had of the other man doing these things to him, but he could never fathom this sort of scenario.

“I think you’ll find that you’re mine, right now, Stark.”

There it was the confident tone Tony needed to make him enjoy this even more. He could feel how hard he was, the blood coursing through his veins, feeling the pumps ringing in his ears.

“You’ll have to make me…” He panted, fumbling over his own words. He tried to be stubborn but he was feeling so dazed from the affection he received.

Steve pumped his hand faster, rising to the challenge, giving him an open mouthed grin, but trying to maintain his focus on pleasuring the ex-billionaire.

“Tony.” He watched the Captain’s lips, “Lower your guard… Let me in.”

Steve’s voice made Tony’s body relax, “Hold me more.” He demanded, only out of desperation.

 Steve’s other hand slipped around the man’s thin waist, pulling him closer as he lightly gripped on the lower, toned back muscle. Tony found his head tilting back, and Steve sat up, kissing Tony’s Adams apple and nuzzling it with the tip of his nose.

Tony groaned, his body ached, but none of that mattered. All of the pain seemed to fizzle away under the sensual touches.

His hips swayed unconditionally to Steve’s pumps, wanting more, craving more. His eyes opened and he tilted his head forward to admire how the Captain’s muscles moved, seeing the clockwork move with his hand motions too, it was truly beautiful, regardless.

“You’re stunning.” He cooed.

“Mr debonair…” Steve replied, “Even now, look at you…”

The faster Steve’s hand moved the closer Tony felt to the brink, his palms gripping tightly on the man’s chest, his nails trailing down the cold steel to make a screech but ensuring he made marks, wanting to possess him as he’d wanted to do for so long.

Steve enjoyed it really, seeing Tony so possessive over him, just reminded him of how he treated him when the man had first seen him without the super soldier serum, so protective, so adoring.

Tony raised his hips, rubbing his rear against Steve’s hips in a soft grinding motion. He was going with it, he’d never done this but he needed to feel him, he needed to _feel_ the man _inside_ him. He was scared, he knew it would be painful but he would trust Steve with his life.

“I’ve wanted this for so god damn long…” He whispered.

Steve knew that he was the only person that could silence Tony Stark, and he did so by pressing his lips against the mans, tugging him down for a deep, raw kiss as his tongue swept over the other man’s lips.

Tony mewled under the kiss, Steve took the incentive to deepen it this time, showing his dominance as his hand motions slowed, his thumb focusing circling the tip of the man’s stiffness. Their bodies were colliding the heat intensified as the more friction was generated between their bodies, arching toward one another in sheer passion and lust.

Steve’s hand that supported Tony’s back slid down the curve of his rear, edging closer and closer between the cheeks and finally, the tip of his finger gave Tony’s opening a testing press. His body stiffened right away and his eyes widened, “W-wait…” He whispered as he broke from the kiss, licking the tendrils of saliva that trailed as he pulled away. He reached his arm down to the first aid box that was by the bed, his hand fumbling around for it clumsily, pulling out the small pot of medical lubricant. He popped the cap open on the bottle using his teeth then held it out for Steve to take. That was a good idea, at least it was safe, as if doing what he was doing with metal fingers wouldn’t hurt enough.

He squeezed the liquid onto his fingers and then resumed his actions, now much easier and much slicker than before, he pressed his skeletally designed fingers into the man.

“Relax…” Steve whispered.

Tony’s breath hitched, he winced, and then whined, his body tensing despite the command as he felt the cold kiss of metal slowly ease its way into his body. It was just one finger, one deep, long finger. Tony’s mouth opened and he sat up properly, arching his back ever so slightly.

 “You look after me, you do this… For me…” He blabbered incoherently, his vocabulary becoming somewhat limited. His fingers pushed deeper, moving inward and then out, slowly at first but as Steve got the hang of it, he moved faster.

“How does it feel?” He asked.

“G-good… So good…” Tony panted, “More… Feel me, Steve!”

With that he was given the permission to push yet another finger inside, spreading them slowly and scissoring his way to widen and relax the muscle, to train it.

He was so needy and there was no denying it, but Steve was just the same. Years of built up tension and this was the result, hot, passionate lovemaking.

Tony’s mouth opened wide, letting out a yelp at the feeling but then what came next surprised him. Steve’s movements were short and jerky, quick though, as the fingers began to pulse inside him. Steve had managed to get the fingers to vibrate. The flush extended from Tony’s face down his entire torso, his body filling with jolts of pleasure.

“Oh… Holy shit!” He cursed, not expecting that. It was amazing, this pulsing was pushing against his sweet spot over and over, making his body shudder with bliss, his eyes shutting whilst beads of sweat trickled down his back.

“Watch your mouth.” Steve replied, content to see Tony in this much pleasure because of him.

“Yes sir!” He said far too over enthusiastically, biting on the inside of his lips to supress the cursewords he wanted to let out.

Fuck, this is so good, oh my god, Steve Rogers is… Doing this to me, he’s really doing this.

His hips pushed hard against Steve’s body, trying to grind himself closer toward the super soldier’s huge standing length.  

“Inside… Now!” he begged.

“Are you ready?” Steve asked.

Tony nodded eagerly and positioned himself, raising his hips over Steve’s lap, gripping his firm muscular thighs for support, trying to prevent his sweaty palm from sliding across the metal.

Slowly he eased himself down, feeling the tip of Steve’s stiffness against him, feeling the warmth which made a change from the fingers, a pleasant change. He pushed down against it, his body shaking but Steve positioning his arms around Tony’s frame to give him all of the support he needed. Tony cried out, his shoulders easing back.

“Breathe.” Steve reminded him, feeling Tony’s body take him in. “Gently.”

Affectionate couldn’t even touch the way Steve’s voice sounded right now.

Tony eased lower, his body cringing but then relaxing to accommodate Steve, once he was fully rested inside him he dared to open his eyes, looking down at the man who he loved so much, so dearly for so many years.

Steve reached for a kiss, his lips trailing along Tony’s lips, dancing over his patches of facial hair and crinkling his nose at the tickle of it.

“I love you…” Tony whispered uncontrollably, the fire inside him being lit after being dormant for years

“I love you too.” Steve panted, moving his hips to please Tony, feeling him around him which made him purr in content.

Tony rolled his hips, arched his lower back and shut his eyes again, moaning close to Steve’s skin, moving to press his lips to the super soldiers neck and try and muffle his sounds with the others warm skin.

The bottle that he once had in his hands just toppled to the floor with the more rigorous movement, the bed creaking loudly.

“Mine…” Steve said with a low voice.

His head tilted back and mouth fallen ever so slightly open.

“Yours….” Tony replied, though practically incoherently, biting onto Steve’s skin for some sort of relief. He wanted to leave the same marks that he was sure the man left on him. Though Steve tactically countered by dragging his fingers down Tony’s back, moving to the front to get a grip on his hipbones, his thumbs caressing the distinct V.

Tony moved up and down, swaying his head back and then burying it once again into the crook of the man’s neck, panting loudly. He could see even in the dim light of their reactors that Steve had flushed cheeks. To calm him he pressed a kiss to any flesh that his lips could seek, his own hands dipping along each crease of the beautifully sculpted abdomen and trailing up to his shoulders, finding himself grappling on for support as Steve picked up the pace of each thrust.

Deeper they went, and both of them could feel each other drowning in ecstasy. Mid moan Tony was cut off by a passionate kiss, although Steve loved to hear him cry out his name, he also loved to know that he knew exactly how to shut him up.

_His lips tasted of ash with a faint apple pie aftertaste._

_All American hero._

Steve nipped, bit and lapped, unable to get enough of the handsome man he had in his lap.

Tony broke the kiss and panted near to Steve’s bright red ear, “I’m going to…” He warned, clutching tighter onto his muscular shoulders, just above where the arms began.

Steve made sure he was going so fast that Tony yelped a jumble of his name, short quick movements that made sure to graze against his prostate with each thrust. The pleasure was immeasurable.

Their bodies were colliding with force, slipping against each other in a clumsy mess, but so focused on giving one another the most pleasure they possibly could. Though just being with Steve was enough to send Tony to the moon and back. His tip was leaking down his stiffness and onto Steve’s front the closer he pressed. Tony’s grip moved to Steve’s thighs, unable to drown out the moans as he held on as tightly as he could, hair swaying back with drops of sweat making their movements much slicker even as time went on. He was sure his rear was raw and red, but regardless, he was filled with such need.

“Do it… For me.” Steve panted.

That permission couldn’t have come sooner, pushing him right to the edge, and with one final roll of his hips he climaxed with a long drawn moan, completely breathless and exhausted. Steve took that as his cue and once he felt his own tip go as far as it could, as deeply inside Tony as possible, he released. Tony’s body jolted forward quickly to the filling sensation and he moaned from the back of his throat, keeping his lips occupied by placing a series of butterfly kisses along Steve’s strong, square jaw. He appreciated every inch he could; caressing his skin and feeling Steve do the same to him.

He completed him.

“I love you…” His voice was strained. Once again Steve lay back, pulling Tony with him, though the dark haired man cringed when he felt Steve pull out and the sticky liquid drip down his inner thigh. But he relaxed and lay on top of Steve, looking up at the man whose hair was matted down, damp with sweat knowing for well that he probably looked exactly the same.

There they lay in a broken down hospital, in the ruins of one, which was probably the least romantic setting for their first time. Nonetheless, in Tony’s eyes it couldn’t have been more perfect. Steve placed a series of tender kisses to Tony’s forehead, brushing away the strands that stuck to his skin, then rubbed his arms tenderly along his shoulder blades. Tony purred like a content kitten, kissing the centre of Steve’s reactor appreciatively.

“I love you so much…” Steve replied finally, once they had settled themselves back into the cool mess of sheets, staring ever so longingly at the man he had just made love to.

“After years of not saying it out loud… This was… Fantastic,” Tony had to whisper, his voice hoarse, the physical toll on his body finally becoming prominent, curling closer for more care. The coolness of the reactor was much appreciated, and Tony pressed his face against it, hearing the hum that was as close as he was going to get to an actual heartbeat, masking the internal drumming, just like his own.

“Everything I expected it to be… Tony.” He cooed happily, feeling the man bundle close, the flutter of eyelashes a clear indication of Tony’s need for rest. “You’ve earned this…” Steve replied, proudly, thinking about the pursuit and perils that he had gone through to get where he was at that moment. And after years they were now together with Tony resting in the arms of his guardian angel, though at that moment it was Steve that was cradling his knight in shining armour. Their legs tangled together, and even though Tony couldn’t feel the real heat of Steve’s body from one side, at least he knew he was there and that was enough. There was a click of metal as their legs tangled, and Tony felt the cold brush of the other against his real leg, it made him let out a hum. Then they laced their fingers together, both metallic and real in perfect harmony.

_He completes me._

“I’ve got you…”

_He loves me…_

After a while of simply being next to each other, with Steve kissing the back of Tony’s hand, taking in his scent and the warmth of his body they drifted into a well-earned rest; Tony hoping that his own serum, Extremis, would heal some of his injuries over night, but at that time his injuries weren’t his worries. He was in the arms of his hero and that was all that mattered. 


	20. Mane

**

He felt the gentle rise and fall he was resting on, upon the unscathed skin. He didn’t want to move, not a single inch.

Waking up to the sound of helicopters flying over wasn’t exactly the wakeup call that Tony was expecting after a night of passion and lust. He groaned and pressed his face closer to Steve’s, kissing the super soldiers cheek, eager to see his eyes flutter open. His body shivered as the cold winds wisped through the broken windows. It didn’t help when he moved closer to Steve, considering the metal legs that his own were tangled with were only colder against his skin, making him shudder again but just clutch himself closer to any source of warmth. Steve’s torso was the best bet, making him chuff like a tiger as he nipped at Steve’s skin.

“Sleeping beauty?” He said in a low voice. “Wake up. Your prince charming is here.”

It was no surprise to see the love bites that Tony had made the previous night had only dwindled into dark marks as opposed to bruises; such was the effect of the super soldier serum. It made him pout, leaning closer and biting harder on the marks on Steve’s skin to try and darken them, even if the effect was temporary, he needed that confirmation that the man now belonged to him in a sense. Even if he was the more submissive one that night, that wouldn’t be known to anyone.

Tony stared like a kitten, wide eyed at his owner who just stirred lightly. Impatiently he huffed, dipping to press his chest against Steve’s, hearing the clink as their reactors pressed together. He let out a groan, the sensation being odd to say the least. It made his body go slightly numb, as though they were two magnets trying to repel from one another, which would make theoretical sense since the arc reactor was essentially based off the basis of an electro magnet.

Steve’s eyes opened, staring at the man and then placing the palm of his metal hand to Tony’s face, again wishing that he could truly feel him again. “How’re you feeling?” He asked.

“A little sore.” Tony pouted, wriggling his derriere. “My battle wounds don’t hurt as much, but we’re in a hospital, I’ll patch them all up.”

“If you need help…”

“I’d appreciate that.”

He didn’t even need to finish his sentence. That’s how close they were. That’s how close they always were.

Tony had to slide off the bed, regretting the decision almost instantly, the cold hitting him right away. His undersuit crept up his skin and he reached for some of the parts of his suit, sitting back on the bed with the acrylic shard and a couple of tools that he’d found from the first aid box; a scalpel and spoon, even the smallest tools were the most helpful in those sorts of situations. It was time to fix that power regulation problem.

“Do you mind if I..?”

“Go ahead.”

The genius took that consent to analyse Steve’s arm and suit and see how the power regulation system was there, squinting at particular notches and wires but of course, he was a quick study. Crouching down over what he could, he compared it to his own system and with a lot of work had finally managed to get his reactor technology fully compatible with the new augmentations. Steve pushed himself up and watched Tony carefully, though it pained him that he had a giant gap in his memory. Whilst Tony was working on the suit he looked at his own hands, then at his legs. A pang rang through his heart, a dull ache in his chest as he felt it slump. What had he become? What had he turned into? The night before he didn’t have much time to linger within the thoughts that ran through his mind, with Tony quick to comfort him and ease his pain, but now he couldn’t help but dwell on the fact that he was missing large parts of his body. Not only that but he was now missing a huge chunk of his memory. He didn’t have time to dwell, not when he needed to know what was going on.

“So what’s the plan?” The master strategist asked.

“We need to go into that tower… We need to take down whoever is in charge. They’re hurting our friends, Steve. They’re killing them, they’re turning people into killing machines through chips in their brains… And they did…” He stopped, taking a deep breath and glancing up from the part he was working on. “They wiped your mind and turned you against me. Never, never again. We’ll find out who did this to you. I swear to you, I swear on my life that I’ll never let that happen again and I’ll do everything I can to take them down!” He nearly shouted.

The words were filled with conviction, filled with hope and power. This was something Tony was setting his mind toward. Hurting Steve was the last straw. He leaned closer to the torso of his suit, fixing the new and improved spinal clamp. “We’ll go to the tower and this will be the end of it, rescue Peter, save the others. The end.”

“I have the confidence in you Tony, I know we can do this, together.”

“Together.”

He stood, clipping the new boot on, followed by the rest of his armour. Although it had a couple of dents, and some cracks, he knew it would be enough to hold its own.

After all that time, reassurance was needed.

He stepped toward Steve and placed a chaste kiss over his lips, then watched for his reaction. Shortly after he received the faint blush accompanied smile he was anticipating and felt his heart flutter. This was going to be the start of something big and he knew it. Plans bubbled in his mind, thinking about what they could be together, how they could have a life together. Tony was a hopeless romantic when it came down to the line, and although he had gone through his fair share of relationships there was one that stood out, and that was with Steve. The man that was constantly on his mind, the man he aspired toward, his hero. In times of crisis he would ask himself ‘What would Steve Rogers Do’. Even Rhodey knew how much Tony really cared about the guy, and would often jokingly mock him for it.

Kneeling down, he slipped the boot covers over Steve’s legs, even though he heard his back crack when he did so. Grimacing in pain he shook it off. Slowly continuing placing the boot over the metallic foot and looking up at Steve. It seemed so much like a fairy tale.

Cinderella.

The boots clipped into place, and Tony began fixing up the rest of Steve’s armour for him, although the Captain seemed to get a quick grasp of doing it himself, never one to just sit around helplessly no matter the condition he was in.

Steve got to his feet with a wobble, holding onto Tony for support then helping him stand properly, seeing the slight slump in his posture.

“How’s your back?”

“Still painful… I’ll recover.”

“You better take it easy, Stark, when we’re done with this you’re going to rest, you hear me?”

“I’ll make sure of it, Cap.” He flashed a reassuring smile.

Together they stood as Tony regained his posture, keeping his head held high. He knew he’d need to if he was walking alongside his hero, his partner, his love.

“Oh, I’ve got something to give you, before I forget.”

“What’s that?” He asked, seeing Tony pull something out of the back of his armour, handing it carefully to Steve.

“It’s special, just keep it, will you?” He said.

Steve glanced down momentarily at the tiny chip he was given, nodding and tucking it securely into his own armour.  

They walked out into the bright light, shielding their eyes. Tony instead slipped on his somewhat repaired helmet and began taking strides through the city with a much stronger heart. Now that he had Steve by his side he felt invincible.

Beams of sunshine broke past the tall canopy of buildings; light broke through the shadow as though it were a sign of what was to come. In the distance Tony could clearly see the tall structure that he was heading toward, looming over the city, casting its shadow.

Toward they went, passing through the crowds, slipping through easily as no one seemed to bat an eyelash at them. But he had his shield with him, his rock, and he knew that they could withstand anything together. The original Iron Man with Iron Patriot walking side by side, even though Steve lacked a helmet.

Their pace picked up and they began to run, the helicopters gliding over but as soon as they did the two ran to a wall and sidled along it. It was an unspoken routine, and even with the memory lapse Steve knew that any form of spotlight was something to clearly avoid.

Then they finally reached it, after traversing the city, with no malfunctions so far in his basic suit which was a plus. Things seemed to be working well, even better since his power supply seemed regulated and the suit was moving in sync.

_So far so good._

There were two guards by the main door, two large henchmen that were quite clichéd in terms of appearance; bald, burly and wearing white suits. If he didn’t know better they looked as though they were based off the King Pin, especially with the large canes that they both held.

“Quiet.” Steve said. Tony nodded, knowing that was their signal for things to be stealthy. If they made a move out of place he knew that either more security would be alerted or the civilians would notice, and that was something they couldn’t afford. Reaching for a bottle that Tony had picked up on their way, he threw it to the other side, hearing it shatter.

Upon hearing the noise the guards quickly turned their attention toward it.

That was the perfect opportunity to divide and conquer. The instant one was ushered toward the noise, the other remained in position. Steve ran as quickly as he could, losing his footing for a moment on the boot but catching it as he leaped up behind the man and elbowed him hard around the crook of his neck, hitting the nerve and sending the large mass of muscle to the floor, dragging him quickly into the building so he didn’t attract attention. Tony meanwhile crept up behind the distracted guard and pounced on him from behind. Pinching the nerve around his neck just like Steve had taught him to, muffled by Tony’s metallic hand that was wrapped around his mouth. When the man finally fell limp, Tony copied exactly what Steve had done and dragged the man inside, placing them by the door. They were stunned, but that meant that they had to be as quick as they could before they woke up again.

Tony darted toward the map that was by the reception, with Steve covering him and lightly grabbing the receptionist who seemed as brain dead as the rest of the civilians that dwelled outside, though the second that he grabbed her it was as though he’d flipped a switch. She flailed and kicked, making loud sounds which he had to mask with his gauntlet.

He hated using force on women, especially civilians that were obviously being controlled.

Gently he tried to stun her, but her writhing in his large arms made things far more difficult than they should’ve been.

“Here!” Tony threw over a syringe that he’d picked up at the hospital. “It’ll knock her out for a while.”

_Stealing medical supplies from a hospital; yet another achievement I can add to my resume._

Steve caught it with precision and injected the needle into the woman’s neck, watching her fall limp within a matter of moments.

“Anaesthetic.” Tony replied before Steve even had the chance to ask the question. “Got a lot more where that came from.”

Steve rushed to the computer she was sitting in front of, looking around. “I’ve got an idea here where the security cameras are, there are dozens of them.” Steve sighed.

“If I had my frequency disruptors I could deal with them…” Tony muttered to himself.

“Do what you can, Tony.” Steve replied as he stepped up to him and placed a firm hand on his shoulder, meeting his eyes with that confidence restoring stare.

Tony nodded and ran to the computers, eyes focused on the screen as his fingers ran along from key to key, pressing down with an amazing speed. He typed a couple of commands, lucky for him security systems hadn’t changed as much, and this one was easily accessible. Not to mention things were much easier with Extremis, and this was a computer that the technopathic virus could actually access, rather than the chip system which he had to manually override. “Okay to get the main cameras down and the locks in the building we’ll need to get to the control room which is in the top of this place. To get there we need to get to the 13th floor. Room 66.” He said, quickly running back to Steve’s side and doing a visual sweep of the room. “There wasn’t much I could get from those computers…”

Steve pointed to the elevator. “Is that too easy?”

“…Stairs would be the other option.” Tony groaned “Thirteen flights of stairs…”

Steve rolled his eyes and grabbed Tony by the arm, walking into the elevator and looking from side to side. “How about we fly up?”

“Now that’s better thinking.” Tony climbed on top of Steve’s shoulders and pushed the ventilation hatch off the elevator ceiling, pulling his body up and reaching down for Steve. “Take my hand!”

Steve grabbed it and heaved himself up with Tony’s help, once they were by the range of pulleys, out in the open Tony looped his arm around Steve’s waist.

“I know you can fly now but… One last time?”

“Who says this has to be the last?” Steve asked, finding it easy to get lost in Tony’s eyes, catching them dazzle through the eyeslits of the old mask.

Tony smiled, starting his propulsion system in his boots and soaring up with the much heavier armoured man in his grip. Steve kept on the look out for the numbers that were painted along the inside of the walls. He tilted his body a bit toward the walls, just so that he could use the light from his own reactor to make things a little more visible.

“Thirteen, here we are!” He said, his loud voice echoing throughout the passage.

“You ready to pry those doors open, Cap?” Tony called as he hovered over the entrance.

“Yup, got it!” They were so in sync, reaching toward the doors and using his enhanced strength, hearing the pistons in his arms activate as he used his force and pulled open the thick metal clad doors.

Tony flew through the now opened doors and placed Steve down, quickly getting their footing and running, again there was another hitch in Tony’s running. His back was still in agony but now his leg was acting up again. Steve glanced at him over his shoulder and Tony quickly dismissed the concern, continuing to run alongside the man in the red white and blue armour.

Walking along as quietly as they could, sticking the walls and peering around corners, having to duck whenever they saw a cronies with faces that was blank slates walk by.  Ducking through the narrow hallways they finally reached the large wooden door with the numbers ‘66’ written down in a dark green.

Steve started shimmying the handle but it didn’t open, it was then that Tony unleashed his trusty acrylic shard and used it to jimmy the lock open. He slid the piece between the door and the gap, pushing it down and then gazing at the keypad, placing his hand over it and trying to figure out the code. Luckily he’d seen a couple of numbers when he was using the computer earlier, and typed them in and bingo – the door opened right away. 


	21. Ostium

 

Behind the door was a huge lab of sorts; filled with computers. In fact, the room was nothing but computers. A polished silver floor, large silver machines to match, even the walls seemed lined with steel. It was empty and cold, but Tony was used to this atmosphere. Steve on the other hand, hated labs. As much as he’d spent time in there especially when working with Hank, T’challa and Reed, it always managed to get to him. Labs reminded him of pain. They were so sterile and empty most of the time, and this one proved his case exactly, especially considering how huge it was. With every step they ventured, an echo was produced from the metal of their boots hitting against the floor. They were trying to be stealthy but having entered such an open space, it was difficult to.

Their first objective was to get to the main computers. If he went to the control panel he could shut down the security, that’d allow him to get into the main room which was just next to the control room. When looking on the blueprints back in the reception, the main room didn’t reveal much asides from its name, which meant that it was the heart of the entire operation, and secrecy always piqued the attention, given the curious cat that Tony was.

He had expected masses of guards to be waiting for them, but instead all he saw were a couple of lab assistants on the computer that turned to face them by swivelling on their chair. Tony bore some sort of insult that they didn’t get to their feet right away.

Within a blink of an eye it was as though someone had flipped a switch, they stood up with their mouths wide open and frothing, leaping toward the two armoured heroes like rabid animals.

A quick dive to the left to avoid the hit, then a crack on the jaw when Tony’s metal hand made contact, sending the first of the men cascading to the floor.

“He’s going to feel that in the morning!”

Steve grinned and stood back to back with Tony after whipping out his shield and holding it up to defend them both. The second possessed scientist crawled and leaped toward Steve but was blocked by the cracked Vibranium circle. Just like the behemoths that Tony had faced before, he should’ve known that one punch wasn’t enough to keep them down. He wasn’t there to witness how Carol and Jessica had finally taken them down, if indeed they had managed; he only saw the aftermath.

“If you can put him to sleep that is!” Steve bantered back.”

Tony pouted under the mask. “Hah hah, very funny. Maybe your jokes are the things that needed augmenting.”

_Jump up, CO2 enhancements in the leg activated, hydraulic powered kick._

He went through everything in his head and it went just as he thought, the enhanced kick from his augmented leg sending two of the men back into the machines, so powerful that their bodies made dents in the machines.

“There are some things about me that no machine will ever change, Tony.” Steve said with a beaming grin, throwing his shield in the way he was well accustomed with at the other lab assistants that came at them with the same black and hollow stares. He watched it ricochet off the others, returning to his hand then whirling it out for another go.

They both looked from side to side, searching for more people but it seemed that they had taken care of that. What concerned Tony was the fact that with one simple prompt, they changed from mindless drones to killing machines. He needed to find what was making them trigger like that, and how to stop it, and clearly they were running out of time. If they’d activated these guys, it was like poking a beehive, and they were right in the centre of it.

Tony darted toward the computers with Steve covering him, performing a visual sweep of the room as he stood close behind the other man, keeping a hand reassuringly on his armoured shoulder to let him know he was still there.

The main computers were easy to access especially since he’d recognised the numbers on the screen. They were the same passcode as the reception desk, and after typing the familiar string of numbers into the system he had managed to log in. They both stared at the screen with anticipation, wondering if they would finally get answers as to what was behind this and how to destroy it, as well as the name of this supreme leader. All he knew right now was that they’d managed to get the bad guys to work with them. So it must’ve been some new conglomerate where they were all compiled into one.

Tony’s eyes sharply widened, though it shouldn’t have surprised him in the slightest. Of course his augmentations has the ‘Oscorp’ logo and not any of the other ‘evil scientists’ – this whole thing was an Oscorp system. Which begged the question, what happened to everyone else? Tony’s eyes were fixed on the scrollbar as he typed in a couple of commands with Steve observing his movements carefully. 

“According to these files there are no other companies involved. Here we have a bunch of legal contracts and they’re all addressed to Oscorp… This ‘Supreme Leader’ we’ve been hearing about… It’s just Norman…”

“So Osborn is in charge of all of this? Everywhere around the world?”

“Seems so. These subsidiaries aren’t run by anyone but him, and…Look…”

Photos of the ‘partners’ flashed up on the screen. Octavious, Hammer, Stane, Bain and many more – all with the words ‘deceased’ and how they died.

“Mysterious shootings and heart-attacks huh? I’m no CSI agent but this is starting to all add up.”

“And you told me off for watching too much CSI, now it’s coming in handy.”

Tony laughed a little, “Puh-lease. Grey’s Anatomy is far more interesting.” His eyes returned to the screen where there was a huge map, eyes darting from highlighted point to point to see all of the places where the weapons were. He clicked on the point on the Empire State Building – only to see the schematics of the bomb that they were trying to dismantle.

“A biochemical…”

“Oscorp.” Steve finished off.

“Shit…” He cursed. “That son of a bitch, it was him, it was him all along! He did this to me!” He glared at his augmented hand then glanced at Steve. “He did that to you… He… He did that to you!” Rage began to fill his tone, his hand quivered and teeth began to grind against one another.

“Tony… We’ll take care of him. We’ll bring about justice. Don’t let your anger cloud your judgement, we’ll get everyone back and we’ll take care of him.” Steve squeezed Tony’s shoulder trying to inspire him again, but was distracted by movement that came from the door that they’d used to get into the place. “I think we have company.” 


	22. Rideo Risi Risum

After taking a deep breath to calm himself down Tony looked around, “I can’t see anything.” He internally chastised himself for the peripheral vision his helmet had given him, considering all of the dents it had in it.

“I’ll be your eyes, don’t worry.” Steve reassured him, bending his knees slightly into a crouch so he could move when the shadow finally revealed itself.

A manacle, dark cackle echoed in the large room, it came from all over. Steve and Tony looked up and down, around where they stood.  Steve stepped forward a fraction and then quickly a large orange smoke bomb was sent their way. A puff of smoke wafted up Steve’s lungs, making him cough and hack as he quickly covered his mouth with a gauntlet, but strangely enough, his eyes could see right through the blast, seeing a flying machine zoom past.

“That looks familiar.”

“Norman, up to your old tricks again?!” Tony shouted, coughing a bit as the smoke seeped through the eyeslits of the mask, causing him to shut his eyes tightly before they began to water.

“We know it’s you in charge of all of this!” Steve shouted.

“Look who has managed to rebel against us! Not for long!” The Green Goblin cackled as he revealed himself from beyond the orange smoke, flying around on top the Goblin Glider.

Tony powered up his repulsors, knowing that he had limited use since he needed to regulate power into his augmentations to keep them running. He took a quick dive to the right, keeping his palms held upward as he spotted the glider swerve, facing the moving figure even though it was hard to see, especially with his eyes tearing up.

“10 o’clock!” Steve shouted.

Tony took the command and raised his hand up, shooting a repulsor ray in that very direction, only to miss.

“12!”

Obediently following the command he rushed and did the same, the figure looming closer, cackling loudly and throwing the Jack O’ lantern shaped bombs toward the two men. Tony and Steve dived either way of the bomb, with Steve’s heavier legs being much more difficult to move in.

Tony leaped to Steve’s aid, grabbing him by the arm and tugging him away as fast as he could, the smokescreen making things much more difficult – moreso than they should’ve been. He had to try and find some sort of pattern, but the moves of the Goblin were frantic as he darted from side to side, unleashing his bag of tricks upon the two heroes that mainly consisted of bomb after bomb. Each bomb was getting closer and closer, Steve and Tony tugging one another out of the line of fire.

“Osborn! Stop messing around, you’re delaying the inevitable!” Tony shouted.

“The inevitable? Nothing, Tony, is inevitable, asides from your defeat!”

“No way in hell!”

“You forget who owns this place, who owns this new world and the entirety of its secrets!”

“This dictatorship will fall, Norman! I’ll make sure of it!”

Tony sidestepped to give Steve a nod that they both knew too well and tilted his shoulders back, the bright light in the centre of his chest powering up. He pivoted on his heel as Steve drew out his shield, the powerful unibeam hitting the surface and parrying off in the direction of the goblin, shooting the glider down and sending it crashing into the floor. With the room flooding with smoke, Steve and Tony stood together, his knees unlocking after having to stand and brace himself for the sheer power of the unibeam. They had to wait for the smoke to clear as Steve’s eyes widened, activating a different type of vision he didn’t even knew he had when he squinted. It was a heat sensor.

“I see him, he’s getting to his feet, quick!” Steve said, preparing his shield to throw at the figure hidden by smoke.

“Stop, Steve, wait!” Tony quickly grabbed Steve’s wrist and stood in front of him protectively, narrowing his own eyes as he watched the figure slowly reveal itself as the smoke subsided. The Green Goblin was taking slow steps out, laughing darkly. The tone he used to laugh made the hairs on the back of Tony’s neck stand up, backing closer to Steve for security. The armoured Captain instinctively huddled closer to Tony, placing an arm on Tony’s.

The Green Goblin stepped out, tugging down his dark purple glove to reveal his monstrosity of a hand with a switch drooping in his palm. “I’m sure you know what this is, Tony Stark!”

Tony’s eyes shot wide open and he backed off, trying to get Steve to stay behind him. “That’s a…”

“-A dead man’s switch, correct.”

Steve had heard of those types of devices long ago, but never had come face to face with one.

“You take a step closer and your cyborg friend loses his memory.”

“You’re bluffing, you can’t do that…” Tony spoke through gritted teeth.

“I can do many things, Tony. You know who I am, don’t you? You know what power I have? After all, I am the supreme leader of this place, such an apt title for someone who is ultimately superior to all of you street walkers.”

“Don’t lie!” Tony’s tone gradually became more ferocious. He didn’t want to lose Steve after he had just gotten him back, straight away he took a glance over his shoulder at Steve, making sure he was okay. The Captain was fine, his eyes focused on the man walking toward them and taking according steps backward, even though Steve was never one to cower away. He was only moving back because Tony was the one taking the steps backward until they backed into the main computer which they were using in the first place.

“I wouldn’t lie, especially when you know what this is. If I die, the memories go, just… Like… that.” He snapped his fingers, each pause making Tony’s heart skip a beat as the man neared the switch he held in his palm.

“Tony, just take him down…”

“Your memories, Steve, I’m not about to lose them!”

“You need to take him down, once he’s down we can search the building. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

“Listen, Steve…” He peered over his shoulder, trying to meet the soldier’s eyes. “I’ve lost my memories before, a long time ago. And I never, ever want that to happen to anyone else. It was so painful trying to remember everything, and you know, to this day nothing seems real. Not a single thing. Everything was what I read out of the papers, it was facts that I drummed into my head and that I tried so hard to make seem real, to visualise in precise depth, but I’ll always have that section missing. There’s only one memory that came back to me that I could never forget; and that was the moment that you first looked up at me when we had you on that table after recovering you from the ice…”

“Tony…” Steve’s eyes filled with sorrow, a weakness in his voice, remembering the moment that he had visited Tony after his memory was lost.

“Please Steve, I don’t want you to lose that.”

It took a moment for Steve to give in, nodding sadly and aiming his own repulsor toward the Green Goblin, with Tony doing the same, both of them standing back to back, armour to armour, with their hands held out, palms facing the same man.

“We’ll take you down and destroy that switch.” Steve said firmly.

“That’s right, let’s power up so much that the thing is incinerated.”

There was a loud sound and Tony hoped for the best, knowing for well the second that the switch fell from the embedded palm, it would activate. So the only choice was to blow off the Green Goblins entire hand and swoop down to catch it.

“I’ll catch.” Tony said. Steve nodded with agreement as their eyes crossed for a fleeting moment.

“Three…” Steve started.

The Goblin took a step closer, reaching into his hand for the last bomb he had on his belt.

“Two” Tony continued.

The repulsors shimmered brightly as they gathered more power, knowing this would be the last of Norman Osborn. The fight had led to this. Take him down, save the world, free them from his control.

“One!” They shouted in unison, firing the powerful unified blast toward the Green Goblin who screamed out in agony, but managed to throw the bomb in his hand toward the two. The blast went as planned, severing the hand with the focused dual power. It was the bomb that was unexpected, flying their way, Steve quickly moved in front of Tony, trying to protect him and he held his other arm up that had his shield strapped onto it.  The bomb smacked into the shield and sent Steve flying back, but Tony was saved and ran as quickly as he could to fetch the hand before it hit the floor. There was a loud clang as the smoke cleared; Tony’s widened blue eyes caught sight of the severed, bloody green hand on the floor, the palm loose. He glanced over his shoulder. “Steve!?” He called out in panic, taking a slow step toward the fallen Globin who lay there unconscious.

“Norman you scum…!” He yelled with venom. “Let me see your god damn face!” His stare incredulous as he yanked the mask up, only to see another man’s face. That wasn’t Norman… It definitely wasn’t Norman. Filled with shock, that boiling sickness and acidic taste in his mouth once again began to rise up his oesophagus.

“No!! You dirty bastard! I’ll get you Norman! There’s no running away!”

He punched the floor next to the man, leaving a large crack. For once, having a completely metal arm proved worth it otherwise he would feel that instantly, even though his armoured gauntlet. Tony got to his feet, turning around as fast as he could and running to Steve, only to be greeted by a punch to the face. The hefty metal gauntlet made full impact with his helmet and send him back to the ground. The genius looked up with horror; tasting the blood swirl in his mouth as Steve stood above him, eyes that extreme cyan once again.

“No… No, that’s not possible, I removed that chip! You should be fine!”

“I am Oscorp technology.” He replied in the cold voice that Tony was greeted with when they had first met in this new world.

“No!” Tony screamed in disbelief, the blood spilling from the corner of his lip even behind the mask. “I saved you! Steve, you’re not his technology. You’re Steven Grant Rogers, you’re Captain America, you’re the hero of America! Snap the hell out of this!” Tony pleaded with pure desperation, tired and sore. “Please Steve!”

Steve picked Tony up by the neck, squeezing the crimson armour tightly, staring down at him with a stare of stone. “All threats will be destroyed.”

Tony squirmed as he was carried off the floor, clutching Steve’s wrist. “Steve! No, Steve!! I love you, please! Remember who you are!” His feet kicked, trying to find a way to push the enhanced Super Soldier away. “Steve, I love you!”

Steve’s eyes focused, though his iris seemed to flicker in colour. “You shall be destroyed.” The vice grip intensified.

“Stop!” Tony could barely speak whilst Steve used his other hand to tear off the faceplate and threw it to the ground with a fierce intensity. “P-please..!”

The Super Soldiers eyes didn’t leave Tony for one second, unblinking and cold.

“Steve…!” He gritted his teeth. “I love you..!” He mouthed silently, over and over, in hopes of reaching his heart, his eyes brimming with tears. As a single tear trailed down his cheek Steve’s eyes returned back to their normal colour.

“Tony..?” The Captain asked with horror, his grip becoming loose.

“S-Steve?” Tony asked with renewed hope.

“H-help… I... I can’t..!” He tried to move his hands before his eyes lit up again, letting out a loud pained scream whilst he grabbed Tony to his chest, pulling him into his arms and activating the jets on his boots – holding Tony above him and using his body to crash through the floors above him. He pummelled through not only one floor but the next three, smashing his body through each ceiling until he reached the ultimate top floor, throwing the limp armoured body to one side, sending him crashing into a bookcase that fell onto his body, even as Tony feebly tried to his best to hold up his arms to stop it. It was too late; the bookshelf fell hard on his body, the dents in his armour encasing him tight in the metal cocoon. 


	23. Ater Atra Atrium

Tony let out a cry of pain, his bones being crushed by the pressure alone. A wooden plank separated the shelf from his face, laying there in darkness in absolute agony. He was sure that he blacked out for a while, especially after all of that high impact trauma he’d just gone through. There was numbness, then sharp jolts of pain that coursed along his spine. The image of Steve the night before was all that was keeping him awake, remembering the warmth in the man’s eyes the night before, visualising it perfectly when his eyes shut and how it made his heart flutter. Steve was the last man he wanted to see, he wanted to be in his arms just like the night before, warm, safe, secure.

“I want to see his face.” A muffled voice said from the other side of the cabinet.

Tony gasped for breath, spitting out the battery fluid tasting blood from his mouth in what little space he had. He was trying to seek solace within his memories, trying to plead for mercy and one more chance to save Steve. His pleas were answered when there was a bright light, the shelf was lifted by Steve who threw the shelf back against the wall aggressively, but upon impact it broke.

“Never mind, I can get a new one… Those books were for show anyway.” The voice spoke in a calm, chilling voice.

Tony could hardly see. Everything was blurry and the room was spinning, but eventually he managed to get a somewhat clearer image. He was in an office, a huge office. A black desk before him with the typical paperweights on them. He shut his eyes for a moment, too pained to keep them open. When he opened them a silhouette stood before him, looming over him. He had his hair gelled back perfectly, arms behind his back standing in his debonair stance.  He coughed a little. Steve flinched at the sight, again his eyes flickering, eyebrows slanting in a way that indicated pain.

The rumble of thunder outside and heavy rain hitting the windows was the only sound that Tony could hear at that moment, his eyes opening again weakly, turning to look at the room. He saw tubes that resembled stasis tubes, spotting Peter inside, Bucky in another, Rhodey, Sam, T’Challa… There were dozens of them, all lining the wall that reached to the peak of the tower. With his mouth agape, his hand weakly crawled over the floor, trying to gesture to them.

“You impressed with my work, Tony?” Norman asked, hands still behind his back as he stepped closer. “They’re all mine. And they’re soon to be like your friend Steve… Now he was the best specimen. The only to one obey me like a dog. He was so beaten from the explosion it was child’s play.”

Tony growled, trying to inch his hand over a bit more, attempting to get the dark green carpet in his hands to heave himself up.

“Do you know how easy they were to **CRUSH**!?” Norman moved his foot, stamping down hard on Tony’s hand, causing the man to yelp with pain, his head falling back. “So easy. If I’d known that you were alive I would’ve hunted you down sooner, made you join their ranks. But actually, now that you mention it, this is much more fun. You can watch now, you can watch every single one of them turn into my minions. At first, I wanted to destroy them; I wanted to kill them all so I weeded out the heroes one by one with my berserkers – my mobs of humans. And these were the prime specimens, the ones that survived the rat race. Survival of the fittest, as always, you should be well acquainted with that phrase by now. In some cases I didn’t even need to do any of the work, they would just kill and turn on each other, which was what I was hoping, would happen to you. Alas, you squirmed your way through the cracks like the maggot that you are.” 

_Save me Steve… Please._

He kicked Tony’s side, watching as the rib panel of Tony’s suit was broken into. “I even tried to make the humans kill you. I had such an easy way too - Captain Marvel was supposed to be another test that failed. The compatibility has something to do with the serum; perhaps maybe, it was his conditioning. Either way Captain America is the only successful test on a superhero. So I’ve had to kill every other superhero because they were the threats to my program. But she was just great to use as an incentive for the public to fear heroes. Who doesn’t fear a hero gone crazy? So the humans would feel threatened and they would kill her themselves, but once again you had to step in the way… So do you know why you’re here, Tony? Do you know why I’ve kept you alive for so long?”

“That… Goblin it was to distract us… You… Want Extremis…”

“That I do. And the secret to the serum is in your blood alone, and once you’re dead I’ll drain every single drop of blood from your body and inject it into your friends here – and then they’ll be the perfect soldiers.”

“What about… Steve’s?” Tony stuttered weakly.

“His blood doesn’t have the technopathic capabilities yours possesses. Yes, he could be used but there wasn’t enough blood in him, and his version of the serum is so old that it’s a wonder he’s still alive, actually. You on the other hand… You have the new enhanced serum. Whenever I did tests using this soldier’s blood it just deteriorated…”

“N-Natasha and Bucky’s serum..?”

“The same thing, in fact, the Black Widow was compatible for a long time. Now look at her, she rejected the upgrades.” He gestured over to her tube, next to Bucky’s. Her skin was torn, her complexion was pale and withered, her hair had grey streaks and body looked frail. “All in all, I needed extremis.”

“What if I wasn’t alive…?”

“I was in the process of trying to find your body, it had taken years, but I was still in search of it. If you weren’t alive well… Then that’ll just mean all your superheroes would be rejected tests. Not to worry though, I would still be in charge, with my chips in place. I would’ve just preferred to have an army, but no worries if I didn’t – I can handle this all by myself.”

“Clearly…” Tony grimaced.

“Armies are nice though, you could always use them to do other things rather than completely useless drones that just become suicide bombers. No sense of self preservation, always depending on others to save them.” Norman preached, kicking Tony’s hand away and turning his back on him, only to stare at the wall of stasis tubes.

“I wouldn’t call human beings useless… You are one, after all.”

Norman turned sharply, stepping on Tony’s hand until there was a loud crunching sound, feeling the finger callipers snap. He screamed out again, gargling the blood that rested in the back of his throat, having to spit it out before he choked on it.

Norman looked down with distain, snapping his fingers at Steve. “Do me a favour, will you?”

Gazing above him and catching the dark hollow eyes, Steve stepped forward, closer to Tony and picked him up, raising his hand and punching through the already dented armour until he could feel the weak crack in Tony’s body. Tony wretched in pain, screaming out with a voice hoarse and strained, trying his hardest to keep his eyes open to meet Steve’s, his tear ducts brimming with crystal tears.

Their eyes crossed once more and upon seeing the tears trickle down the dark mauve bruise on Tony’s cheek the Super Soldier’s entire body began to tremble.  He caught the quiver of Steve’s strong jaw and reached his hand out – a bead of sweat plummeting to the ground, a scent of fear.

“Steve…” He mouthed, his right arm, his augmented hand being the only ligament strong enough to reach for him, touching the reactor but maintaining a very broken line of eye contact. “Don’t let the devil hold you…” The engineer mustered enough strength up to say.

That glimpse of fear along with the words made Steve’s eyes snap back to their usual azure, gently placing Tony back to the ground against the cabinet and turning to Norman silently, sleekly. He drew his shield out and swiftly drew it back.

“I wouldn’t.” Norman cut him off, pressing down on a miniscule remote, whilst his hand rested in his ornately lined pockets.

Steve dropped the shield mid-pose, his jaw falling slack. That very second he could see memories in his mind going in reverse; starting with the most recent.

Tony’s vision was deteriorating, but he grabbed as much as he could onto the cabinet, heaving himself to his wobbly feet, of course his left leg taking a little longer to regain its balance.

“Steve..?” He called out, scanning the room while he could and finally spotting it. Left hand wall, centre computer, which was definitely the control panel that the two had been searching for. It had dozens of pinpoints on the screen, and cameras switching from person to person with vitals on screen.  The distraction was temporary, but Steve needed his attention first. He staggered over as quickly as he could to the other armoured man’s side.

“Steve?”

“T-tony… What… What’s happening? What’s going on?” Helpless pleas drowned in confusion.

“We’re in Norman’s tower, quickly, we have to take him down, he’s just standing there!”

“What? How did we get here…? Last I remember was the explosion, what’s going on?!” He yelled with panic, looking at his body and then at Tony’s.

Just like that, Norman Osborn had managed to take away one of Tony’s most beautiful memories; his night with Steve. Rage surged through him, making his heart race, making the adrenaline pump through his body. He raised a hand and powered up his repulsors.

“We’ll talk… Later!” He shouted to Steve, eyebrows furrowed, focused on targeting Norman.

“You think erasing his memories is all I can do with this?” He asked, stepping toward the main computers and typing a couple of commands whilst the two were temporarily distracted, with Steve disorientated and Tony trying to figure out what was wrong with him. Steve’s eyes flickered again and Tony quickly made steps backward.

“Not again, Steve! Listen, we spent the night together, we love each other, we’re going to take this guy down and free our friends.”

Even adrenaline fuelled, it wasn’t enough to speak quickly. Steve ran toward him, tackling him down by the torso and punching into his chest. Tony tried to punch him back as hard as he could with his augmented hand, using the one shot arm thruster he’d installed, making his hit far more powerful than before. It was enough to shove Steve back, and bought him enough time to crawl toward Norman, but just as he had managed to get close, the super soldier yanked him back by the ankles. Steve was so strong that he tore off one of the boot covers, crushing Tony’s left foot with a mighty crack. Never before had Tony felt such a powerful electric surge shoot up his entire body – the augmentations he had were connected to his nervous system.  

“You get closer, and he’s losing more memories. You know, I can see them all here – on this screen.” Norman pointed. “Let’s get this one up, hmm, what is it now…? The moment he first had woken up and saw you.”

“No, you don’t touch that!” Tony yelped whilst trying to kick himself away from Steve.

The dark overlord snapped his fingers. “Gone.”

Steve paused for a second, flinching and then shaking his head.

“No!!!” Tony screamed at the top of his lungs.

_That was the best day of my life…_

“What’s next? Hmm, a mission after the Civil War – an apology? Well that just won’t do!”

“You leave that alone, Osborn!!” Tony’s cry turned into one of desperation.

“Gone.”

Again, Steve flinched and staggered back this time, hands pushing back against his hairline.

“Oh I think I’ve found one…”

“Don’t you dare!”

“Training sessions with Mr Stark… Wow, it’s amazing how many of his memories stored are of you. Well, not for long.” 


	24. Dolor

He grit his teeth, his body numb, nothing but rage in his mind. “Arrh!” Tony screamed, pushing himself up on the single ankle he had left, throwing his body with every last ounce of strength and grabbing Norman, pulling him to the ground and beating him, over and over. Tony was blinded by rage and offence.  

The Supreme Leader wasn’t about to be taken down that easily, he spun Tony around and gave him a just as equal beating. He swiped his slickly dressed forearm over his mouth, drying the miniscule blood spill from his split lip.

He pushed himself up and kicked Tony’s side, watching the man roll to his side in a slump, relentless booting his spine over and over. Tony’s eyes shut and he cursed.

“I will beat you, I will!” Tony screamed.

Stepping back and glaring, Norman returned to the computer, typing in a few commands and with that, Steve heavily stomped toward the two.

“Finish him off!”

“Prestige power self-affirmation, that’s all you seek, that will never make you happy!” Tony screamed.  “Trust me, Osborn! You’re beyond repair now, you’re completely out of your depth. You’ll have nothing but loneliness!”

“But I’ll have power!” He screamed.  “That’s all I need.  Unopposed power.”

There was no getting through to Osborn. He had become drunk on power and driven insane by his lust for it, he was standing there, foaming at the mouth just talking about it. “Steve… Look at me.”

Robotically, Steve turned his head, staring down. Blonde curtains making the cyan gleam much brighter as his eyes were shadowed.

“Your friends are over there, Steve. Your friends.” Tony pointed to the stasis tubes. “Do you see them?”

A dim response if any, Tony’s pitch lowered, imploring the man, praying that this display of submission would speak louder than words, continuing to lay as he was. As if he could move any further. Definitely not in the state he was in.

He was starting to lose hope.

_No, I can’t… I could lose the world, everything, gone._

_I’m so close._

He shut his eyes, hearing the distant rumble of thunder and heavy rain against the window pain. If he listened close enough he could hear each drop trickle down.

_Breathe…_

He inhaled, then exhaled, opening his dark sapphire eyes.

_You have to do this._

_You have to._

_You’re Iron Man…._

_You are Tony Stark._

He stood to his feet with much agony, his damaged stub of a leg making him stumble. Even Norman looked shocked as the armoured hero managed to actually stand.

Filled with a burning conviction he stared at Steve, deep in the eyes, narrowing his own. He could hear the ringing of his heartbeat, together with the rain creating a melody. He didn’t want to fight Steve, not at all. He wanted to save him and he would make damn well sure that he did.

The tension was thick. It was difficult to breathe. But deep breaths, just like Steve had taught him. Lungs flooding with blood from internal wounding would be no obstacle, because he knew the next few moments would be the last he had to save everyone.

Tony surged forward, Steve doing the same. They ran at full pace and he attempted the first blow by swinging his arm. Steve focused on his defence, raising his shield up as expected.

Always expect what’s coming.

Tony snarled and shot his repulsor toward Steve, unable to balance after it but finding footing once he was leaned against a wall behind him.

Steve swung his shield around, watching it ricochet against the wall and knock Tony’s hand, which was the perfect opportunity for him to go on the offensive again, grabbing him and drilling a series of punches to his chest and abdomen. Though with each strike his own eyes widened, a pained expression lasting. He was conscious, he knew he was, but he couldn’t do a thing; trapped under the puppeteer’s control.

Tony punched as hard as he could, shoving Steve back and then swinging his leg stub around, using the rough metal peg to scrape at the armour. Little by little Steve was being shoved back, closer and closer to toward the computers which Norman stood watching.

Steve leaped upward and delivered a powerful strike with the heel of his foot, crashing it down on Tony’s shoulder and sending him face down into the floor again.

“There’s no use fighting, Stark.” Norman said once more. “I could’ve had you alive, but you choose death.”

“I’ll never work for you, I’ll never help you!” Tony spat.  

“Then kill him!” Norman ordered.

Whilst lying face down, he knew he had one last hope. Shutting his eyes and rolling to face Steve. “It’s okay Steve. Remember no matter what, it’ll be okay. You can do this.” He smiled the bright light in the middle of his chest lighting up further and further.

“Kill him!!” Norman shouted, wanting to watch his foe meet an untimely demise.

He shut his eyes and tilted his head back whilst Steve knelt down next to him.

Steve…

With a swift blow, he thrust his arm through Tony’s chest, hitting the centre of the reactor as it lit up as bright as it could. Tony’s mouth opened and he gasped.

I can feel Steve’s hand inside my chest… 


	25. Sanguis

There was a powerful surge that shot through Steve’s arm augmentation, zipping up his body and through his armour. A huge shock that send him straight into convulses. Immediately the armoured soldier yanked his arm back out of the cavity in Tony’s chest, causing the fallen man to choke at the abrupt removal. Trails of blood streaked through the air from the crimson covered robotic arm. Steve’s entire body began to shake violently, and Tony had only hoped that the force was strong enough to fry whatever was controlling him. He could hear the chattering of teeth, the trembling sound of shaking metal. Opening his eyes as much as he could to watch Steve, even though that only pained him more.

Steve’s arm flailed and a bullet shot out, shattering the glass ceiling. Norman’s attention was brought to it right away, the heavy rain entering the building whilst the thunder rumbled above.

_A pathetic fallacy if there ever was one…_

The man was on the ground, entire body shaking as volts of electricity coursed through his entire entity, amplified by the armour he was in. It’d managed to reach Steve’s core, breaking past the Oscorp manufactured Arc Reactor and rebooting it with an entirely new, enhanced energy force. The shock that occurred during impact fried some of the circuits, the raw energy incinerating anything that couldn’t handle it.

Tony could feel the life draining from his body, the slow seep. He struggled to breathe, every small movement of his chest ached. His reactor still fizzled, after all, the reactor was just a few fractions away from his heart. If it were a straight hit, he knew he would be dead by now, bled straight to death. But he was kept alive, the reactor however was in terrible condition. Being shattered meant that it was running on limited power, and with that, Tony could barely move at all.

_Save the world… Tony Stark…_

He shut his eyes, the images of the light disappearing and blackness befalling him.

_Am I dying? Is this what it feels like to die? All that valour and I die in an office…_

_I guess that’s what I get for living in one._

He looked around him as white glowing wings formed from his back, feeling alleviated, as though his soul were being lifted. Slowly he tilted his head back and shut his eyes, letting the feeling overwhelm him, letting the light take him in. The glowing wings began to raise, lifting him off the floor, through the darkness.

The further he was lifted, the frailer his body felt.

His wings spread, body entirely relaxed as he opened his eyes to savour the moment of bliss. Just as he managed to take a glance at how pure they appeared to be, he noticed a black feather. His attention now turned toward it, the engineer that strived for perfection reached nimbly toward it and plucked it for his wings to be completely white. The wings shuddered and from where he had plucked it, a liquid metal started to seep, corrupting feather after feather and covering each one with a metal plate. He stared, mesmerised by the way the liquid had engulfed him. He knew he needed to get to the light above him, so he pushed his body toward it, but his wings kept him back, the weight was too much. The shimmering metal coat began to generate strange orange bumps on its surface, copper taking over and sending dragging him back down. Tony tried as much as he could to fight it, panicking, pushing against it but the rusted, corroding wings sent him crashing to the floor.

_You must be the protector. The knight of the kingdom._

_Sir Iron…_

With a sharp gasp, he opened his eyes again, trying to clear the murky vision, that copper taste tainting his mouth once again. His body jerked forward sharply. Grimacing in pain and yet, with his body so numb he was able to feel the fizzling continue in his chest.

The reactor was still working. Barely.

Steve was on the ground, Norman with his head turned toward him. “Get up, soldier.” He ordered. “You have work to do. Once you’re done here I expect you to go and find the others that are rebelling, just like this one, and destroy them.”

The Captain’s eyelids languidly lifted, turning his head to cross glances with the weak dark haired man, or what was left of him. Palpitations of pain and rage were all that he could feel at that moment, and then he caught sight of his own blood stained hand, tainted with the black ooze that powered him. Steve raised it up, watching the seeping thick blood; red fused with the black of the augmentation fused blood curdle down each crease in his gauntlet.

“Do your job!” Norman barked again whilst he continued to monitor the screens, now paranoid of any uprising since the return and fall of Tony Stark.

There were blanks in his mind, many of them but right now, all he could see was the dying man before him and blood on his hands. Forcing himself to his feet, he took slow, pained steps toward Tony, still juddering occasionally from the shock. His reactor felt strong, better than ever actually. It was as though he could feel Tony’s strength supporting him.

Carefully he knelt down, pulling Tony into his arms whilst Norman was preoccupied. Scooping him up gently he leaned as close as he could, placing a hand over his heart, trying to cover the cavity desperately.

“The… Computer…” Tony whispered.

“What? Tony… Tony…” He repeated, scrubbing a hand through his hairline, careful not to spackle blood on those prominent grey temples. There was an apologetic tone as his dismay began to show, trembling.

_I want to hold him like he’s holding me…_

He yearned to kiss him, but was too far.

He wanted to smile to him, but he was too weak.

There was no pain between them, just heartbreak.

“Steve…” Tony spoke in the smallest of voice, so fragile in the larger grip.

Just the mere mention of his name on Tony’s lips, so weak and faint made him tremble with sorrow. But he was so brave and strong at the same time, trying so hard to speak.

“You need to…” He coughed.

Steve brushed the blood away from the cherry red lips that had lost their colour, swallowing thickly.

“I can’t lose you.” Steve whispered.

Steve was showing his cracks.

The soldier was breaking. His heart was crumbling, shattering, tearing – every single possible way of being destroyed.

He tried to brush the blood away but only ended up smearing it, chastising himself internally.

Tony’s eyes started to lose their glimmer.

“Steve… The computer…”

He was inaudible.

Tony stared up at the azure eyes that met his own, seeing the crystal brimming by the tear ducts as a single tear managed to roll down his beautifully porcelain cheeks, cascading over his structured cheekbones and then fell onto his own destroyed armour, tears he was trying desperately to withhold. It was as though he were watching an angel cry which was possibly the most heart-breaking vision he’d ever witnessed.

He wanted to say more

Say how much he loved him…

Rain from the broken ceiling fell on both of them, as if they were in a tragedy on stage, the water dripping down each bump and crack of metal. Steve stooped closer, holding Tony tightly, trying to ease him.

“I’ll save you.” He promised.

Each breath was becoming a heave. Even his sense of taste was starting to fade, but that very moment he wished he could taste Steve’s lips once more. At the sight of his quivering jaw, Tony tried as much as he could to raise himself, to whisper into Steve’s ear.

“Plug the reactor… Into the machine…” He said with the last ounce of his strength.

Steve looked at him, feeling the slip of breath near his ear, every small hesitation and hitch. He placed him back down to the ground, temporarily.

“Osborn!” Steve shouted at the top of his lungs whilst the newly powered reactor in his chest began to fizzle and spark with energy.  His hair soaked, falling over his eyes as he stood with his fists tightly clenched.

All he could think about was Tony, how his knight was falling, how it was his fault.

No, it was Osborn’s fault, Norman Osborn had made him do this. He pushed him to his limits, and it was only with Tony saving him from the control that he was freed from the prisons of his mind.

Osborn’s eyes shot open, taking a few steps back and trying to activate his emergency systems, trying to call upon his other weapons, but it was too late. Steve leaned his shoulders back, pushed his chest forward and shot a unibeam with all of his might, letting out a mighty bellow, a scream of pure pain, sending Norman thudding back into the wall behind him, charred and burned. The smell of burning hair and singed clothes enveloped the room, but all that ran through Steve’s mind, was that beautiful scent of watermelon and cherries; Tony’s scent.

He wanted to kill Norman, but he knew that would be letting him off easy, now he had more important matters to tend to.

He scooped the engineer into his arms and rushed him over to the computer system, resting him against it. Tony mouthed instructions and Steve listened ever so carefully, just watching the way his lips moved, ripping out the panel with his might and adjusting wire to wire, clipping each one to the reactor, or what was left of it.

“Keep your eyes… On the screen…” He whispered.

As the reactor was plugged in, the words ‘connection successful’ appeared on the screen. Tony shut his eyes, feeling his consciousness dissolve into the wires, doing the work and slowly disabling each and every chip. It was then that he connected to the power generator, the main computer that controlled every single person, and slowly his energy source seeped through the wires and started to power the generator. Once it had taken over, the energy was pure, and every chip deactivated at once.

The people outside stopped in their tracks, eyes opening as though they had just woken up, gasping for air and stumbling around, looking in sheer confusion.


	26. Alatus

There were gaps in Steve’s mind he was desperate to fill, so much he wanted to ask Tony, but all he knew was that Tony was his friend and so much more. His heart beat with Tony’s power, it felt like he was running through his body and that energy just made him stronger than he had ever been.

Each tube began to open, members of their team falling, some awakening upon the glass tubes opening. Peter, Bucky, Rhodey, Pepper, Strange, T’Challa all stepped out, regaining their footing and breathing in the thick air. Norman backed up against the wall, eyes widened in horror as each and every one of the team loomed up to him.

“You were the cause of the bioweapon in New York…” T’Challa growled.

“All over the world.” Stephen Strange added as he held his hands up.

“Implanting these chips in our heads and making us slaves; a price for you saving us…” Rhodey added with fury in his voice.

Bucky flexed his arm. “I’ll show you for throwing me in a tube again.”

“We all will.” Valkyrie added, punching her palm with her fist.

The room filled with the loud scream as they honed in on the man that had ruined their lives, that had killed so many of their friends.

Rhodey’s attention turned to Tony, reaching out his arm, only for Pepper to place her hand gently over it.

“Let them…”

She didn’t even need to finish, Rhodey nodded, but stood on watch, sadly taking in the sight of his best friend in the state he was in.

There Tony was, next to Steve, just as they had always been; fighting side by side.

Steve smiled as he watched each blip on the map fade, turning to Tony. “You did it, everyone’s free again, we did it Tony.” He said, kneeling down next to him and placing a hand over his chest, just over the wires, the gaping wound in his chest still pouring but by this point the flow had lessened.

He was dying.

_I’m going to fly again._

Tony’s smile was weak, barely even visible.

“We did it…” He smiled.

“You did it, Tony. You did…” He knelt closer, wrapping his arms around him as much as he could.

“We…” Tony trailed off, his eyelids fluttering shut.

_We did it… Steve… My love._

Steve felt the body in his arms fall, Tony’s head lightly rest against his shoulder. The man rest in the warmth of Steve’s arms, gentle trickles of rain glistening through his hair. The Captain held him close, feeling the warmth disperse.

“Tony. You’re so strong… We’ll get you home, I promise.” His voice was broken, each word a stutter. He pulled back hesitantly, not daring to move too much, but Tony just lay still in his arms, his eyes shut so peacefully.

“Tony..?” He whispered, skimming his metal fingertips over the man’s face. From the corner of his eyes, he caught the reactor with no light, and then he focused on the man himself. He couldn’t even breathe. He just stared at him. “Tony…” He whispered over and over, searching for a reply. His lips were moving but not a sound escaped them, mouthing Tony’s name and shaking his head as uncontrollably tears fell from his eyes, mixed with each drop of rain from above.

Watching the Captain weep over Tony’s body was a heart breaking sight for all, regardless, after dealing with Norman they stood in unison in a moment of silence for their fallen comrade.

Steve’s life had stopped there and then. He was frozen in the moment, mourning the love of his life.

_And there he lay_

_Still in my arms_

_I’ll keep you here forever…_

_My knight_

_My love_

_My hero._

_I love you, Tony Stark._

One last kiss, one final press against the cold lips.

“I love you.”


	27. Posterus, Postremo

** *

Days had passed since, and the rebuild of the city had commenced, with the Avengers standing as the leading body.

To honour his fallen companion, he asked the other to repair Tony’s armour for him and he replaced his augmentations with Tony’s, as well as the red and gold slicked armour, that was refined to the standard Tony once had. He wanted part of him with him forever, and with Tony deeply embedded into his heart, he felt that he would always be with him. The armour was just a show of his loyalty to the man; his legs and arms were Tony’s, his chest was the bright star powered reactor. The Captain wanted to show that Tony was part of this team, and no matter what, he always would be. So he stood representing him, he stood representing the saviour of this world with pride and valour. He was now the leader of the Avengers, the sole leader, the guardian of the city and of the world.

After it was installed there was always a strange glitch now and then, where his fingers would move of their own accord, but strangely enough that was a reassuring feeling.

“I know you’re there Tony…” He would reply with a soft smile to quell the grief.

It was when Steve was going through his weapons that a small chip had fallen out, staring at it with disbelief he plugged it into a card slot that he had newly installed into his armour, after all, it was brand new armour; somewhat. The chip was old and worn and had the old Stark Industries logo on it; it was practically a relic so obviously it took its time to boot up.

As he plugged it in, a recording started to play, but a strange sensation went through his body first. Fragments of Tony’s memories flashed through his mind just briefly, his soul was in that chip. The mere feeling made Steve’s heart beat the same way as when he stared into his eyes.

“My name is Tony Stark – Anthony Edward Stark, alias: Iron Man and this… Well, is my diary? Captain’s log, some could say.”

Steve stared in shock at the hologram that appeared before him and only him, hearing his voice. Everything looked so old, even Tony’s hair was much longer, and this was filmed in the days where he had only a moustache and not the signature goatee.

“Day one. You wouldn’t believe what I found today… Get ready for it. Captain America. The actual, Captain America…!”

Steve could feel his breath catch, not daring to tear his eyes away from one second. Although his friends had tried to fill in as many memories as he could, it just wasn’t the same.

“This has to be one of the best days of my life.” Tony spoke with such elation, his hands flailing with excitement as the camera pointed toward the sleeping Steve, then back at him. “Best days… Ever!”

“It was mine too… Tony.” 

 

~fin~


End file.
